{"id":3605,"date":"2005-12-14T15:42:23","date_gmt":"2005-12-14T23:42:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2005\/12\/14\/itms-affiliation-is-a-pain-in-the-butt\/"},"modified":"2019-12-14T07:20:01","modified_gmt":"2019-12-14T15:20:01","slug":"itms-affiliation-is-a-pain-in-the-butt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2005\/12\/14\/itms-affiliation-is-a-pain-in-the-butt\/","title":{"rendered":"iTMS Affiliation is a pain in the butt"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:7301,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.oreillynet.com\\\/pub\\\/wlg\\\/8724&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.oreillynet.com\\\/pub\\\/wlg\\\/8724&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:6221,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/click.linksynergy.com\\\/fs-bin\\\/click?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941.10000170&amp;type=4&amp;subid=0&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>First, the good: I&#8217;ve gone through, bug-checked, and slightly tweaked the code for <a href=\"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2004\/09\/auto-generating.html\" title=\"Eclecticism: Auto-generating iTMS links with affiliate info\">automatically linking to the iTMS in ecto<\/a> to ensure that it works and performs searches as it should (something I&#8217;d been meaning to do for a bit now, as that page seems to be referenced fairly often by people working on that particular issue).<\/p>\n<p>Then, the bad: while I love the idea of iTMS affiliation &#8212; and if I got more traffic, it might even bring me more than a few pennies here and there &#8212; I&#8217;ve got to agree with Scot Hacker that the whole shebang <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oreillynet.com\/pub\/wlg\/8724\" title=\"Scot Hacker: POST, GET, and the iTMS\">is really a pain to deal with<\/a>. While I haven&#8217;t had to fight with the <code>POST<\/code>\/<code>GET<\/code> issues that Scot is, some of his issues sounded <em>very<\/em> familiar to me&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  It turns out that a lot of the links provided through the LinkShare back-end (Apple partners with LinkShare for the affiliates program; you have to use their back-end to generate your custom links) simply don&#8217;t work. See the six (currently static) album covers in the left column of the site? Only two of them actually take you to that album in iTMS. The other four take you to the iTMS homepage. All six links were pasted directly out of the LinkShare link maker, and should work as-is. This problem is totally unrelated to the POST problem &#8212; they&#8217;re just dishing up broken links to affiliates, period.<\/p>\n<p>  [&#8230;] I was expecting to find some kind of ad rotation mechanism for affiliates. See those static Stevie Wonder banners at the top of all the lyrics pages? I should be able to drop in a block of code and have those rotated out automatically from iTMS. Instead, the only option is for me to return to LinkShare every few days and grab some new static code. &#8230;why should this be so difficult?<\/p>\n<p>  [&#8230;] I&#8217;m trying to sell music for Apple here. You&#8217;d think they&#8217;d welcome all the help they can get. This whole process has been incredibly frustrating. Maybe I&#8217;ve drunk too much of the Apple Kool-Aid, but I really expect better from them.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/click.linksynergy.com\/fs-bin\/click?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941.10000170&amp;type=4&amp;subid=0\" title=\"Get iTunes\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"iTunes\" border=\"0\" width=\"61\" height=\"15\" src=\"http:\/\/images.apple.com\/itunesaffiliates\/logos\/iTunes_sm_bdg61x15.png\" \/><\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"http:\/\/ad.linksynergy.com\/fs-bin\/show?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;bids=78941.10000170&amp;type=4&amp;subid=0\" alt=\"\" \/> &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/click.linksynergy.com\/fs-bin\/stat?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941&amp;type=3&amp;subid=0&amp;tmpid=1826&amp;RD_PARM1=itms%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZSearch.woa%252Fwa%252Fcom.apple.jingle.search.DirectAction%252FadvancedSearchResults%253FartistTerm%253DCypress Hill%2526songTerm=Insane in the Brain (Hot Tracks)%26partnerId%3D30\" title=\"Search for 'Insane in the Brain (Hot Tracks)' on the iTMS\">Insane in the Brain (Hot Tracks)<\/a>&#8221; by <a href=\"http:\/\/click.linksynergy.com\/fs-bin\/stat?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941&amp;type=3&amp;subid=0&amp;tmpid=1826&amp;RD_PARM1=itms%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZSearch.woa%252Fwa%252Fcom.apple.jingle.search.DirectAction%252FadvancedSearchResults%253FartistTerm%253DCypress Hill%26partnerId%3D30\" title=\"Search for 'Cypress Hill' on the iTMS\">Cypress Hill<\/a> from the album <em><a href=\"http:\/\/click.linksynergy.com\/fs-bin\/stat?id=xLsJkztrnNY&amp;offerid=78941&amp;type=3&amp;subid=0&amp;tmpid=1826&amp;RD_PARM1=itms%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZSearch.woa%252Fwa%252Fcom.apple.jingle.search.DirectAction%252FadvancedSearchResults%253FartistTerm%253DCypress Hill%2526albumTerm=Hot Tracks 15th Anniversary Collectors Edition%26partnerId%3D30\" title=\"Search for 'Hot Tracks 15th Anniversary Collectors Edition' on the iTMS\">Hot Tracks 15th Anniversary Collectors Edition<\/a><\/em> (1997, 5:18).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While I love the idea of iTMS affiliation &#8212; and if I got more traffic, it might even bring me more than a few pennies here and there &#8212; I&#8217;ve got to agree with Scot Hacker that the whole shebang is really a pain to deal with.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2039,2040,2035],"tags":[80],"class_list":["post-3605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apple","category-blog","category-music","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3605\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}