So we know that netizens have a dizzying list of things they can do for Memorial Day weekend, but let’s check in with some of our favorites to see what they’ve got planned.

- Affiliate Summit and FeedFront co-founder Missy Ward is in pursuit of some sparkly new exercise equipment:

Looking to buy a new treadmill – anyone have any feedback on the NordicTrack Commercial 1500 or other recommendations?

- London-based Martin Osborn, who was recently profiled here, may not be celebrating Memorial Day weekend, but that doesn’t exempt him from suffering some questionable American hip-hop:

You know it’s going to be a bad day when you’ve got fucking Akon stuck in your head.

- Stephanie Lichenstein of Micro Media Marketing meanwhile takes to Twitter to see who’s not leaving the city for the long weekend:

Who’s staying in NYC during the long weekend?

- And Memorial Day’s loss is our Friday gain as Copyblogger’s Brian Clark explains the increase in post frequency today:

We’re not publishing on Monday due to Memorial Day, so there will be two Copyblogger posts today. Please refrain from celebratory gunfire.

- Which is all to say that unfortuantely, Lisa Barone of Outspoken Media will not be joining the vacationing throngs this weekend:

Working today and Monday = I’m pretty much going to hate all of you for the next four days. Don’t take it personally.

With so many exciting developments within and outside of the affiliate marketing world than we can feasibly blog about, here’s a round-up of some of the most exciting items circulating throughout the internet.

- The “Kill Your Facebook Page” backlash gains some serious momentum after evidence was discovered of users trying to delete their profiles. [PC World]

- Which is unfortunate for the imperiled social networking giant, as a group of enterprising young programmers are determined to setting up a functional Facebook alternative. [BPM]

- The U.S. Government is trying to curb “bill shock”–the trauma experienced after opening your cell phone bill to find that it’s ten times more than it should be. [Daily Finance]

- And on the subject of unexpected surprises, the time is now for affiliate marketers to stay apprised of sudden changes to advertisers’ landing pages. [FeedFront]

- Which might be helped if more affiliate marketers get together and pow-wow more often. [BPM]

- Wikipedia gets a $1M grant to help purge political bias from its entries. [Network World]

- Today is the last day to cast your vote on speakers for Affiliate Summit East 2010. [Affiliate Summit]

- Skype is adding ads. And it could change the way businesses connect with customers. [BPM]

- Scientists have invented robots out of human DNA that follow instructions and work cooperative to make products like gold particles. [CNet]

Four thousand affiliate marketers, one Las Vegas hotel, three days. The numbers alone are a little bit intimidating, yet the Blue Phoenix Media team just got back from the conference; and we’re here to tell the tale of one of the most successful Affiliate Summit’s to date. In this case, what happened in Vegas is getting documented on the BPM blog.

The conference started on Saturday, January 16th, but the party really got started at the meat market on Sunday. The BPM table was one of the most visited all day (it helped that we were next to a big screen TV playing the Jets – Chargers game). Some more numbers to describe the meat market: 4 BPM team members, 1 table, 6 hours of talking = 4 lost voices. We met some great people and look forward to working with a lot of them.

After closing down the meat market, we rushed to get ready for dinner, and the affiliate summit tip off party, co-sponsored by who else? Blue Phoenix Media of course. The party, at the hardwood suite in the palms, was a hit, with 700 people in attendance before we closed the doors.

After the party, it was time to get down to business. Monday and Tuesday brought meetings, lots of meetings. We’ve put many names to faces and started building some lasting relationships. And if we weren’t starting a new relationship, we were catching up with some of the individuals and companies we’ve been working with for years.

If you were at the conference and we didn’t get to meet you, please drop us a line at meetings@bluephoenixmedia.com, we’d love to get to know you, don’t worry, we’re a friendly bunch. And if you weren’t at the conference (don’t worry, we won’t hold it against you), drop us a line as well.

Due to what I am told was relatively sparse attendance last year, many people involved in affiliate marketing dragged their feet buying passes to Affiliate Summit West this year. These people were very surprised to find that the event was not only going to be pretty well attended, but that it was even sold out well in advance. I have had no fewer than eight people (some to whom I had spoken, and others to whom I hadn’t) email or call me out of the blue asking if I had extra passes.

I’m not sure that this means what I hope it means: that the economy is actually on its way back to a full recovery. I feel confident, however, in the idea that performance-based marketing is really recovering from the global recession faster than traditional advertising and most other industries.

In any event, there has been a lot of buzz in the industry about Affiliate Summit West. Some of what you’ll hear and read is in anticipation of the parties. Most, though, is in anticipation of reconnecting with former clients, vendors and colleagues in a much more certain and positive commercial climate.

  The Blue Phoenix Media team will be at the Affiliate Summit West 2010 in Vegas!  This event will be fully loaded with experts, vendors, affiliate merchants and networks ready to share their expertise and create money making relationships that will help affiliates rack up on the big bucks for 2010 and so on.  Some of the speakers include Larry Adams from Google, Dave Gaetano of the New York Times and the CEO of Offers.com, Steve Schaffer.  Some other companies that will be in the building are Facebook, Affiliate Future, Resource Nation and Hub Spot. 

Yes, these speakers and companies are fabulous movers and shakers of the online marketing world; however, it’s only right that we take a few seconds to boast a few of our many attributes that we feel you should know about before meeting us at Affiliate Summit West.  We’re known for our affiliate network which consists of over 200 advertisers and 4,000 publishers.  We’ve got our back end PHP server along with 20+ exclusive web properties to maximize brand awareness that we’ve built and own as well as various Education Portals that generate quality leads.  We offer campaigns in over 20 verticals which include Education, Consumer Products, Health and Diet, to name a few.  We also have a Coreg platform to serve into registration pages to monetize websites.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, our CEO Amy Sheridan and COO Malaika Schmidt along with their team of affiliate managers will be in full effect at Affiliate Summit.  If you’d like to schedule a meeting, shoot us an email at Meetings@BluePhoenixMedia.com, otherwise just stop by Table #7 on Sunday January 17, at the Affiliate Meet Market, Rio All Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Amazon A-E
Time: 12:00pm – 6:00pm .  See you soon!

Blue Phoenix Media, Inc. is prepping for our first exhibit at Affiliate Summit Las Vegas ’09. With this show being in early January, it is the perfect opportunity to meet new prospects and rekindle current relationships in a brand new quarter.

CEO Amy Sheridan and COO Malaika Schmidt will be there to go in depth about the three sides of our business. To give you a head start, here are the three things we do:

1st – We are a CPA Affiliate Network made up of over 200 Advertisers and over 2,500 Publishers.

2nd – We have over 20 Web Properties that we built and own, which range in verticals such as Education, Health, Entertainment and Travel.

3rd – We have our own Proprietary Lead-Generation technology that we built and own and we have our own Coreg Platform that we can serve into registration pages to monetize websites.

Contact us now to schedule an appointment.

We look forward to doing business with you in the New Year!