The Revolution Media Blog

Caroline McGuckian

So it may only seem like five minutes ago but all the way back in July I commented on Amazon's policy of rejecting affiliate commissions for sales generated through social media, specifically Twitter, in part due to a clause that requires sales to be generated from the domain listed in the Associate account the affiliate holds with Amazon.

Well this week Amazon appears to have, if not made a u-turn, then at least gone back on that position somewhat. Based on what I have seen they have not publicly acknowledged any change of policy but earlier this week they communicated a new feature that enables their affiliates to click a button from within Amazon to create a tweet promoting the page they were on at the time.  Interestingly, despite evidence to suggest Amazon would use their own short-url service, these affiliate links use the popular Bit.ly service instead.

It seems a sensible move. We all know that online communication is increasingly moving away from a one-way broadcast model and therefore the volumes to be got through links placed on specific affiliate sites may well be on the decrease. What's more, Twitter's popularity seems to be in no way declining with news stories today suggesting that Twitter is achieving growth through increasing adoption from a youth audience. It is worth noting this contradicts some of the expert research Morgan Stanley released earlier this year that suggested Twitter didn't appeal to teens (excuse me whilst I remove my tongue from my cheek).

It will be interesting to see where this goes next. Given Amazon's policy on Affiliates only promoting their products on their own site it is not currently clear whether the links generated through this new method would still work if posted elsewhere (Facebook for example) but the evidence suggest they will, and that Amazon are no longer actively enforcing this policy. There is also still a lot of concern regarding the use of monetized links on Twitter (and social media generally) and what's more, given the current FTC review going on in the US, the use of such links without clear labelling could soon be illegal.

What do people think? Is it smart of Amazon to get in there and allow users to make money out of their social network now (before someone else gets in there) or is Twitter somewhere that should really stay 'ad' free?