It was with a touch of irony that I read an A4U piece on OLD’s 2010 blogger award this weekend. In an interview after the awards they asked me why I thought so few UK affiliates maintain a blog… and pretty much since then I’ve hardly posted here. In part because I’ve been doing other stuff like taking photos of boats and bees, but also because sometimes it’s nice just to take a step back once in a while.

But the affiliate world doesn’t stand still and the fortunes of three UK affiliate networks are in focus at the moment.

At the end of July DGM went into administration, but it’s taken a further fortnight for the plugged to be pulled. As of the end of last week affiliates who had not removed links were given a pretty lousy 12 hours notice that dgmPro for the UK was being switched off by ADH Holdings who had acquired the system.

There’s an announcement on A4U and some quite direct comments in response to things.

Going public with views, at least in The UK AM industry, is often not the “done thing” so it’s quite refreshing to see some open commentary, especially from those involved. Quite often (and I’ve said this before) there’s an assumption that those involved in AM know what’s happening “behind closed doors” when they don’t.

Actually in fairness, I’m a nosey so and so and just want more gossip.

However open commentary isn’t being confined to just the end of DGM in The UK. Sunshine’s Chris Clarkson has posted an emotive post on his blog about Affiliate Future. His open letter is an interesting read and hopefully those who can react to his suggestions take them on board. In fact it’s Sunshine’s and their affiliates’ frustration with AF’s development (or lack of it) that has led to them opening with Paid On Results.

This move could be a key one for POR and early indications suggest that they realise this with the launch of their Sunshine Report. This is a bespoke reporting suite for affiliates of Sunshine.co.uk on POR and first impressions are pretty impressive. I’d be surprised if other travel merchants and affiliates aren’t raising one or two eyebrows in POR’s direction after seeing what they can potentially offer them versus what they may be getting elsewhere.

In fairness POR aren’t the only network innovating. Tradedoubler quietly announced Product Level Tracking (PLT) with RouteOne. From the email “PLT enables commissions to be offered to you on individual products”. So if RouteOne want their affiliates to focus on DC branded gear they can raise the commission for it. An interesting development to keep an eye on in the future.

For now though, the sun is most certainly shining on POR up in Scotland.