iTunes Affiliates
Posted September 1st, 2004 @ 03:13pm by Erik J. Barzeski
I've signed up to be an iTunes Affiliate. Heck, if for no other reason than I can save myself a nickel for each song I buy, right? You can sign yourself up at http://www.apple.com/itunes/affiliates/.
Currently, I'm waiting to be approved. The signup process is rather lame and through another company named LinkShare, which, if you look, has what appears to be thousands of other affiliate programs.
I would greatly prefer a system that does this:
- Ties into your .Mac account (or your Apple ID, the same one you use to buy stuff in the store).
- Had the option to simply build a credit with the Apple online store.
- Was completely handled by Apple, transparently.
The confirmation email had broken URLs that don't relate at all to iTunes. They work after 30 mins or so and they're just links and banners that refer people to join LinkShare.
It's a very kludgy process. Kludgy != elegant, which is what we typically expect of Apple. I have no idea how I'm going to link to specific songs, but the idea I had was to link my "currently playing iTune" (right sidebar) and my iTunes list to the store. They do so currently, so, I may as well try to make a nickel now and then. Or, as I've said, save a nickel. 🙂
We'll see how it goes. So far, I'm not impressed.
Donate Life
Posted 01 Sep 2004 at 4:05pm #
What's really stupid is that it doesn't look like you can register if you don't live in the US (no suprise there then, this is Apple we're talking about). You can enter your details and even select you're in the UK from the longest country list dropdown I have ever seen. Then there's the section for US taxpayer details which is mandatory however, If you don't have the tax details - no account. I don't live in the US so i don't have a 9 digit tax number.
I may be missing somehing but that's plain daft...
Posted 01 Sep 2004 at 4:37pm #
I signed up earlier today. If you go to the create links section, you'll see an item at the bottom that says You have applied and are awaiting approval for these merchants: Apple iTunes
I've had iTunes links on the artist pages at WorldBeatPlanet for a while. It would be nice if I could get paid for them.
Posted 01 Sep 2004 at 9:02pm #
Riz, I just signed up from Denmark and ignored the US details. And it allows you to select country as well... just that it only applies for the US iTunes store... not you.
Posted 02 Sep 2004 at 12:15pm #
Thanks Isaack - I went back and had another go and registered - it's a terrible form.
Posted 04 Sep 2004 at 1:13pm #
The one thing I wonder though is why all the links go to iTunes (the software)... since they don't have individual links yet. It's strange that they aren't concentrating on links to download and install the software until you can do something useful by linking into the particular song.
Not very well thought out, me thinks.