It looks like he is promoing the stuff. Unless I am mistaken the link he provides goes to Adam's sell link. What I can't tell is where the extra ten bucks is coming from or going to as the link shows the price as 30 but the youtube info says 40
It does seem to link through to Adam's page though. He quotes the price wrong, but I don't see how he could collect the difference. Like people below me said, maybe it's a click through thing. If he can get a share of enough different products he can bump his ranking, then get higher listings to attract more customers.
If that's what he's doing he might be drawing off some hits. It's like if you are selling shirts out of the front of a store and some guy comes along pretends he works there and starts standing outside offering people walking by shirts. If you want a shirt, he walks inside and gets a shirt and walks you over to the counter so you can pay. He's working for tips, or rather click throughs. If he can get big enough he could start paying people to plug stuff for them. It's a strange business model. If he is good enough at it he could get people coming to his page to look at other stuff. If he is an honest businessman it's not that bad an idea. It's like cab drivers who get kickbacks for recommending businesses, only his kickback is you look at his other products and maybe even adds if his channel gets enough views. If he is successful he might even start charging to feature you, but the way he is labeling it isn't very promising and he doesn't seem to be offering a particularly useful user interface, and by lumping all the brands together if someone has a problem with one brand they may take it out on the others. It's not like a traditional store where you realize the hand lotion manufacturer has nothing to do with the company that makes the cheese snacks, and he seems to be blurring that line on purpose. At the very least he should be doing a better job explaining to people what he is doing.
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Last Edited by on Jun 28, 2012 1:47 PM
Only way I can see him making $$'s is if he gets some kind of "pay per click" from that strange shortened URl he uses as the link. Is that video montetized with YouTube ads (I use adblock, so I can't see if it is)? If so, he might make some $$'s that way too. His channel is full of weird "get rich quick" stuff, so I don't doubt that he's trying to make some $$'s off of this stuff. If it were my stuff he was flogging, I'd flag the video and get it pulled. It's really off-putting... ---------- == I S A A C ==
It seems to be a variation on the affiliate model.
I could see this working well for someone who puts out polished promos, but I wouldn't want someone with such low production values promoting my stuff.
@nacoran "It's like if you are selling shirts out of the front of a store and some guy comes along pretends he works there and starts standing outside offering people walking by shirts. If you want a shirt, he walks inside and gets a shirt and walks you over to the counter so you can pay. He's working for tips, or rather click throughs. If he can get big enough he could start paying people to plug stuff for them. It's a strange business model. If he is good enough at it he could get people coming to his page to look at other stuff. If he is an honest businessman it's not that bad an idea. It's like cab drivers who get kickbacks for recommending businesses,"
Ever been to Turkey Nate? Every on the street interaction from asking for directions, Australians picking you up hitchhiking, commenting on a nice piece of fabric will end up in "my cousins" carpet shop drinking apple tea and watching some poor young kid flip over a mountain of rugs one by one. Any sale nets a commission for whoever corralled you through the door.
Admin edit- Spelling. Mine, not yours. Actually I just meant to edit it in the original quote in my post but I clicked on yours instead by accident, so I thought I'd add an explanation so it didn't seem like I was randomly editing your comment when in fact I was accidentally editing your comment. :) (I left the second 'h' out of throughs).
MBH Webbrain - a GUI guide to Adam's Youtube vids FerretCat Webbrain - Jason Ricci's vids (by hair colour!)
Last Edited by on Jun 28, 2012 2:07 PM
Bluemoose, yeah, it's not a bad model if you know that's what your getting. The problem is, particularly on the web, that you could be searching for a specific store and end up getting a middle man instead who is trading off your reputation. (He used Adam's name in the YouTube search.) I'm sure some of these middle men are very reputable. Even big sites do product reviews. The problem is, if you don't know you are dealing with an intermediary and that intermediary turns out to be shady (like not making it clear from the start that they are an intermediary) the dirt can come off on you.
Back in my college days a group of us from the student newspaper went to a convention in NYC. We went out afterwards to find some food. We were college kids on a budget, so we were trying to find someplace cheap. Fortunately, in NYC they usually post the menu and prices on the front of the business. We walked by a hotel and looked at the prices for the restaurant inside. Too pricey. There was a doorman there, and he realized we weren't going in, so he talked to the head of our group and said there was a place just around the corner that was about half the price, which was still a bit pricey, but doable- just tell them he sent us.
We went around the corner. There was no menu on the front, so we went in. We were a big group, and it was late. (I think there were about 30 of us. The staff had to move a bunch of tables around to seat us all.) So we sat down, and some of us ordered some sodas and a couple other drinks (most of the group was under 21). When they brought out the menus is was the same place as around front! He's sent us around to a poorly labeled back entrance. They brought out little 8 ounce sodas and charged $4!
It wasn't the waiters fault. They'd been very accommodating, what with moving the whole place around to seat us, but we got up and left. We sure did make sure we let them know who had sent us! Still, at those prices even on the sodas it was worth their while. The problem with the intermediary is that they often promise things on behalf of your business that aren't really what your business provides, or at least they can. They can be fly by nights. They leave you with a battered reputation and they are on to the next one. On YouTube they can even delete the negative comments!
To continue the store front shirt guy metaphor, if he's tracking people down all over the town and bringing them to your store, and being honest about what he's doing, then he's adding value. If he's just standing out front and pretending he's affiliated with you he's being a parasite. People are already looking for your store, have all the info you need to find it, but he's standing in front of your sign (using you in the search words) and blocking the customer from seeing it.
