Affiliate Roles and Blurry Lines?

[taramoar]

A recent post on Fraser Edwards’ fantastic blog got me to thinking about something that seems to be a trend nowadays. Anyone else finding the roles in affiliate marketing blurring a little bit?

I know there are affiliates from way back who’ve started up networks (and made some great leaps there for the industry) but it just seems like lately everyone involved in affiliate marketing has got their toe in a couple of different roles. So we’ve got networks buying up search marketing co’s, merchants becoming affiliates, more and more often affiliate sites are setting up merchant programmes, affiliates are providing affiliate management and search... will there be a point where everyone involved is a merchant who is actually an affiliate who is actually a network who provides affiliate management and search consultancy on the side?

I’m not saying it’s all bad, I believe it makes us more empathetic when dealing with the other side of the fence. I just wonder if this is the way affiliate marketing is going to go? Does it mean that those of us who stick to our one job are missing out or is all this diluting the industry?

As I'm thinking about this it made me chuckle reading Peter Dickenson’s post here saying: The biggest affiliates will deny all knowledge they are actually affiliates!

Tara