Darwin?

[DarwinAW]

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I want merchants to be able to better understand how an affiliate will be promoting them.

[kitbag.com]

I want merchants to be able to better understand how an affiliate will be promoting them.

I want Awin / Darwin to stop teasing me ......... :drool

[Sam Surry]

I want Awin / Darwin to stop teasing me ......... :drool

Patience is a virtue John....

[kitbag.com]

Patience is a virtue John....

Ha ha - yes maybe .... but maybe I'm not a very virtuous man !!

[Sam Surry]

It's a real shame you can't join us on Friday, but just think, only 6 days to go until you can join the other merchants and affiliates who have opted to beta test darwin remotely. :tup

Tick, tock, tick, tock...

[DarwinAW]

I want to foster collaboration and business relationships between affiliates, merchants and Affiliate Window.

[Sam Surry]

The best kept secret in affiliate marketing is finally out…Darwin is the new Affiliate Window administration area.

Planning for Darwin started in late 2007 and it took 1 designer, 2 quality controllers and 6 developers just over 24 weeks, with the help and ideas of over 90 innovators, to work 8,100 hours to produce this first release.

We decided that a ground-up re-build and improvement of all existing Affiliate Window account functionality was required; we wanted to make extensive use of new web technologies and provide a much more intuitive and user friendly interface. Due to the scale of the project we decided a phased roll out of new features was needed; what the first few affiliates have beta tested today is just stage one and includes:

User based login system
* Every user of Affiliate Window's systems will have their own username and password to login to Darwin
* Users can add their own contact information to allow improved communication
* Users can link their user account to all their different merchant and affiliate accounts to allow a single point of access
* Users will be able to switch easily between Darwin and the old administration area

Detailed Affiliate Categorisation
* Sector categorisation using the ShopWindow product categorisation structure
* Promotional type categorisation that breaks down each type of affiliate

Account Switcher
* Allows merchants and affiliates to switch between their different accounts easily, through a user friendly and intuitive user control panel at the top of the Darwin interface

Account Permissions
* Users responsible for an affiliate account can manage the permission levels for other users with access to that account
* Permission controls include restricting users from editing settings and restricting users from viewing financially sensitive information

Wiki
* The new support and help pages for Affiliate Window merchants and affiliates
* Directly editable by Affiliate Window staff, affiliates and merchants who have a Darwin user account

PLUS, to improve communication, foster collaboration and business relationships and to break down barriers between affiliates, merchants and Affiliate Window we created Profiles.

Currently, affiliates are only able to enter a short description about themselves, add a single URL of a website they run and categorise themselves. In Darwin, affiliates are able to create a profile to showcase their business in detail using the following tools:

* Space for a detailed description
* Logos of merchants they work closely with
* Contact details for the business and individual members of staff
* Upload supporting documents
* List, categorise and describe every website that they own
* Display an RSS feed from their blog

Similarly, if an affiliate is not joined to a merchants' programme, then the merchant has no way of knowing that the affiliate exists within the Affiliate Window system. To combat this, the new profile will be available to all Darwin users; Affiliate Window staff, merchants, agencies and other affiliates. However, privacy controls will allow affiliates to choose if they want other affiliates to see the documents and website information they have displayed.

Over the next year or two we will gradually be migrating all the existing features of our current affiliate and merchant administration areas in to the new interface as well as adding new functionality. This is going to be a massive task but we believe it will allow communication in ways never before offered by a network.

Don't worry; you will still be able to use the old system during this process. The two interfaces will be running side by side until the time comes when we have moved everything across and everyone is happy with Darwin. Occasionally we may have to switch off some functionality; this will mainly be to avoid your details and settings being duplicated in the two admin areas.

The next stage will be the launch of an affiliate directory; a release that will break down barriers within the industry. Following that there will be improvements to profiles, including a version for Affiliate Window merchants. Then the existing news manager email system will get completely replaced; offering a new way for affiliates to receive information from merchants.

If you would like to join the list of affiliates gaining remote access to Darwin 1.0 on Monday 27th July it is not too late to sign-up, we still have 10 spaces available. Simply drop me a line with your full name, affiliate ID and preferred e-mail address; the first 10 requests will receive a confirmation of participation from me this afternoon.

If you have any questions or feedback about Darwin then please send us an email and let us know.

Sam.

[Spreader]

Looks awesome Sam!!

Can't wait to see it in action.

Have a good weekend mate.


Zak.

[joeman]

Sounds great, are there any changes to the ShopWindow API?
ive nearly completed a solution in ASP.NET that interfaces with the Shopwindow API so if the API is changing then i'll have some more coding to do!
any details on changes to the API?

[bapages]

Sounds good but dissapointed about all the hype for just a new interface, I thought something evolution was afoot.

[8601cam]

Bapages, it's certainly not 'just' a new interface. Surely the opportunity for affiliates to comprehensively profile themselves and how they promote will lead to merchants being able to seek out new affiliates as opposed to the way it works now, is in isolation a step in a new direction.

The overall AWin project timeline for Darwin leads into 2011 so perhaps our view of what impact this will have on affiliates is artificially skewed, but we have a plan and rolling out all the functionality in one go just wasn't ideal.

Everyone is of couse entitled to their opinions but don't be too hasty, take a look at Darwin yourself, play around a bit and you'll see more than a reskin and some new features. Hang around a bit longer and you'll find out what Darwin will really mean to affiliates and merchants as we build on these initial foundations. If the so called 'hype' got you this far surely it's worth taking a deeper look?

Kind Regards

Mark

[thethe]

Lol! Yeah it's really really rubbish, not worth the wait at all, very underwhelming and wished I'd stayed at home instead of doing a 450+ mile round trip just to see the bilge. So very disappointed in Affiliate Window. I mean usually, their releases knock the socks off the competition (hence all the awards) but Darwin? Nah, really really rubbish, not even remotely a good idea, and definitely not the best thing to happen for affiliates so far.

Shame on you Affiliate Window.
Shame, Shame, know your name.

I'm inclined to stick with the old affiliate admin area for the rest of my life, having a seperate login for each and every account and needing a seperate account for every website. Its great that we can only add just one domain name to our showcase so Merchants repeatedly assume we're all Voucher code sites. It's great that we can't contact merchants and have no idea how to use the current affiliate admin area. I love it, I really do.

Things that are really rubbish about Darwin :td :

• Having just one login for as many accounts as we want.
• Having as many websites per account as we want.
• Having multiple logins per account for staff members
• Having privacy permissions per login to prevent the Lackies seeing how much the company is making
• Being able to showcase each website and promotional method.
• Being able to upload documents as a way to convey information.
• Having an affiliate/merchant created Wiki for Darwin/Affwin interface/ShopWindow/Content widgets/Create-a-feed etc
• It's not Orange

Things that are great about the present interface :tup :

• It takes ages to do anything
• It takes ages to find anything
• only one website per account per login
• Its orange
• Your face

Darwin Schmarwin

[bapages]

Mark,

Apologies, I am not saying it is a bad thing at all, Just the hype you given to it made me expect alot more.

[jamesbentley]

Hi All,

This new interface does sound pretty cool and it will be interesting to see how the other networks react to it and whether anyone will try anything similar. In my opinion I think the existing AWIN interface is pretty good in comparison to those of other networks. However when you look at all the features offered by the new interface it really makes you realise how restrictive and guarded existing network interfaces are. I believe that Darwin is representative of the general trend within Affiliate marketing of moving towards greater transparency, accountability and formalised advertising partnerships.

On the point of accounts being linked, I would be interested to know if a network (perhaps AW) would ever offer affiliates the option to access all their affiliate network accounts through a single interface - for example Darwin allowing affiliates to integrate their BUYAT or CJ accounts and import data from these programmes so they could be compared within one interface. This would allow affiliates to easily analyse the profitability of campaigns across varying networks and sort the wheat from the chaff. Such an option would make life very convenient for affiliates who have to continually login to multiple different networks to view their stats. The main benefit for the network which offered such a solution would be that it would encourage a greater number of affiliates to access, and subsequently remained logged into, its interface.

Given the high level of competition between networks, somehow I doubt this will ever happen.

Cheers

J

[chrisg]

On the point of accounts being linked, I would be interested to know if a network (perhaps AW) would ever offer affiliates the option to access all their affiliate network accounts through a single interface - for example Darwin allowing affiliates to integrate their BUYAT or CJ accounts and import data from these programmes so they could be compared within one interface. This would allow affiliates to easily analyse the profitability of campaigns across varying networks and sort the wheat from the chaff. Such an option would make life very convenient for affiliates who have to continually login to multiple different networks to view their stats. The main benefit for the network which offered such a solution would be that it would encourage a greater number of affiliates to access, and subsequently remained logged into, its interface.

Hi James

It would be a great thing, but it is unlikely to happen. The network that provides this interface would have access to the data provided by the affiliate/competitor network (it needs to, to allow support of the interface). I can't see a network ever allowing data to be used in this way by a competitor. Just think of the commercial advantage the service provider network would have. There are independent stats aggregators already available that offer this.

What about an independent service provider creating a reporting and analysis application that allows affiliates to view aggregated stats from all networks but also allows automatic access to the different network interfaces, possibly using some sort of OpenID style login system? Networks would then not get access to sensitive competitor data.

Chris