Chris Dessi - Vice President zanox, Inc

World affairs expert and author Fareed Zakaria said he thinks it would be best for Republican presidential hopeful John McCain, if Gov. Sarah Palin bowed out as his vice presidential running mate. Zakaria says McCain did not put the country first in making his V.P. choice, and he says Palin is not qualified to lead the United States.

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Ziggs is a cool new way to "organize and connect with people in a professional way". The service has a harmless enough angle - sign up for free, and they'll help you manage your online image. Sounds great right? Ziggs gets interesting when you dig a little more and realize what sets it apart from the usual suspects of linkedin, and naymz . They also notify you when someone searches for your name via Google, Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, and few other notables). Ok, that's rocking good news. I'm in. I'm sold, I'm signed up. Go ahead, search for me, I dare you...I'll know you did it. Nice.

The true usage for Ziggs. - so that user can manage their personal brand is bound to get lost in the clutter of this sort of reverse big brother action you can pull.

Enjoy your first month for free, because afterward they charge you $4.95 per month.

Press release

OMD 2008 – zanox Rolls Out Red Carpet Treatment For Affiliates with New Publisher Campaign at Germany’s Largest Online Marketing Event

- New Affiliate Marketing Features: Landing page optimisation for all professional SEM publishers; Intuitive Web 2.0 user interface
- Massive extension of zanox Web Services; Integrated solutions for mobile marketing
- Presentation of zanox Publisher VIP Club

New York, New York – September, 2008 – zanox, the leading provider of performance-based online marketing in Germany, unveiled several product upgrades last week at OMD (Online-Marketing Düsseldorf – Hall 10, Booth A22), Germany’s largest online marketing event, which will make it easier for affiliates in the zanox network of publishers to monetize their Web sites’ traffic. The new zanox publisher campaign is focused on enhancing the features of zanox’s affiliate marketing services as well as massively extending the zanox Web Services platform. Additionally, the company announced plans to launch a new VIP Club for its publishers. With its specialised industry-specific expertise, unrivaled international reach, first-class 24/7 service and a modern “open company” philosophy, zanox aims to become the global publisher network of choice.

Landing Page Optimization
A highlight to professional zanox publishers worldwide, the new zanox landing page optimization service has undergone a period of intense development and successfully completed its testing phase. Launching this week during OMD, the software tool offers all publishers specializing in search engine marketing extensive optimization options with respect to keywords and landing pages. Its performance analysis features allow for detailed monitoring of expenses for SEM campaigns, thus increasing revenue from zanox affiliate marketing. In addition, the new landing page optimization provides publishers quick and easy access to valuable information such as how well additionally purchased traffic is actually converting, which search engine keywords are generating revenue through which pages, or which keywords should be watched closely or better be replaced. Professional zanox publishers can employ this solution at no additional cost if they have a Google AdWords account.

zanox Web Services and Mobile Marketing Solutions
In addition to the landing page optimization, zanox will extend its unique Web Services platform to include all business-related zanox publisher functionalities. This transition will enable zanox affiliates to target campaigns with greater precision, deepen customer relations and, for publish-ers, automate and streamline established processes. Thus, zanox will be providing ideal pre-requisites to monetize their Internet and mobile applications and Web sites.

In order to simplify the process of entering the rapidly growing segment of mobile marketing, zanox provides easy, integrated solutions that conform to the Mobile Marketing Association’s standards. zanox’s “mobile device recognition” provides suitably formatted banners automati-cally while using this system extension.

New Generation of Publisher Statistics
zanox is entering the closed beta phase for a new generation of publisher statistics. Using its convenient analysis and control tool, professional zanox publishers will be able to freely create their own custom report templates, no longer limited to default reports, providing publishers detailed insight as to how individual programs and banners are performing. Additionally, the use of advanced Web 2.0 technology allows for a very intuitive user interface.

zanox VIP (Very Important Publisher) Club
In addition to the features and services already mentioned, zanox will present its new VIP Club at OMD. Officially scheduled for launch January 1, 2009, the new VIP program will give publishers with outstanding success access to exclusive premium services.

ZANOX.de AG will be at OMD in Hall 10, Booth A22.

Important links:
zanox affiliate marketing: http://www.zanox.com/en/publisher/products/prm.html
zanox landing page optimisation: http://www.zanox.com/en/landingpages/
zanox Web Services: http://www.zanox.com/en/publisher/products/web_services.html
zanox blog: http://www.zanox.com/en/blog

About zanox
ZANOX.de AG is leading the German market for performance-based online marketing and has established a strong presence in all core markets around the world. More than 2000 prestigious international companies rely on the zanox affiliate marketing network and sector-specific exper-tise in all sectors where innovation is taking place, such as retail and shopping, travel, T.I.M.E.S. (telecommunications, internet, media, entertainment, software) and financial ser-vices.

Affiliate programs provide companies with global solutions for efficiently marketing their prod-ucts and services on the Internet. zanox attaches great importance to the quality of its affiliate sites and to continuously educating their owners, who are in addition being motivated by fast and transparent compensation. zanox’s technological lead becomes manifest in its currently running 1 million euro idea contest for new applications based on its affiliate web services.

In addition to its 24 branches in foreign countries, zanox’s international focus is strengthened by its Global Alliance Partner (GAP) program. Furthermore, in June of 2008 the GAP campus op-ened its doors at zanox headquarters in Berlin to serve as an international meeting point for de-velopers and designers.

Since 2007, 60% of zanox have been owned by Axel Springer AG and 40% by PubliGroupe. Axel Springer AG is Germany’s largest newspaper house, ranks third among her magazine pub-lishers and is also one of the leading European media companies. PubliGroupe AG is an inde-pendent, internationally leading group offering marketing, sales and services to media and ad-vertisers, which it assists in the implementation of their communication and media strategies by delivering marketing and technology services to them.

I know I'm getting borderline obsessive here - but since Gary Vaynerchuk completely blew my mind when I saw him speak at the Web2.0 Expo there is one of Gary's little gems in particular that I enjoyed -

Legacy is greater than Currency.


Gary made the point that our great, great, GREAT Grand kids will know everything about us. It's up to us to decide what our legacy is going to be.

I thought long and hard about this point. Gary challenged everyone in the audience and for me it was such a paradigm shift that I can't seem to stop thinking about it. At no other time in history have we ever put so much "out there".

I think Gary's real message is: Maybe it's time to stop chasing the money, and start to do some soul searching about what you really want to do?