Silly question... why use a third party ?

[JoesHO]

That you can not trust the person you are doing business with, or that you are unhappy with the amount of money you make from them sending you your cut.

Why even be involved with them in the first place?

I mean why not just send your valuable traffic to someone that will pay you a fair shake, and on time, etc....

why even fool with allowing access to you companies sensitive information be handed over to a company that might or might not have a benifite in using that said information?

I mean is it not a matter of total trust that you put into that company? and they are not even paying you a dime, you actually are paying them for them to have the right to your access, and for what else? so they can vouch for you to other companies? and say that their data is correct?

kinda like the fox guarding the hen house it seems to a simpleton like myself.

cause at the end of the day, the issue is still trust in someone else to do the right thing is it not?

I think this business, for all of the talk about how relationships are important, should actually heed its own advise, and if the relationship is not working, then find another relationship is that wrong in my way of thinking?

[gonzo]

Joe I had started a long post about this last week but I stopped to check up on Peaches and I never finished.


THe jest of the post was that you shouldnt worry about a no shave feature nor should you worry about how someone affords to drink kool aid.

You should worry about the level of trust you with ANY company that has access to this information.

If you havent figured it out yet... these programs are POWERFUL. When they are installed you give a 3rd party access to your entire business plan and model.

They can see which processor you do best with, the retention level of your members, how many members, who the members are.... charge back ratios...traffic flow....traffic referrals.... the amount you pay out to each affiliate ... it goes on an on.

I for one would not even think of allowing someone whos main skill is knock off other peoples ideas access to my entire business plan with an executive stat system.

Now you can see how someone could afford to drink Cristal.

When your businss plan is failing --- just devise a way to rip off everyone elses!

With that being said.... its no big secret that I have been working with NATS for the past 7 months on an affilaite program. NATS is an extremely complex system. Its not a matter of making some banners and throwing up a link. Installation of this is totally custom and it may be over the head of a lot of people. It sure as hell has challenged 2 of us with over 10 years of IT experience.

I spent considerable time with John last year in Atlanta before they released this script. I found him to be a level headed businessman and with a desire to establish himself as a true professional.

This was further reenforced in Vegas. Truth be known I sat in on ONE seminar and that was the inner workings of NATS. It was worth my entire trip to spend the hour with those guys. The staff is totally dedicated to this project. The knowledge bases is far more superior to any that Ive seen in this inudstry.

I will admit that we have become frustrated several times during this process becasue it is complex.

NATS is going thru some growing pains. These are amplified by clients that want to flip the switch and turn over the way they do business in a couple of weeks. This system is complex and if you rush it you will break it.

The only problem I have seen is an integration prblem with Electra Cash. Quite frankly I dont know why anyone from Oprano would bother with using Electra Cash when you can use WTS. WIG is family and they run a tight and well proven ship there.

To summarize.... dont rush foolhardily into making a decision as to which one of these cascading scripts you choose. You expose your entire business plan to that company. Youd better have a high degree of trust with whomever you choose. I do have that with John and the crew from NATS.

[*KK*]

Well said Gonzo.

[The Other Steve]

Gonzo I can certainly appreciate what you are saying about growing pains and Marie wrote something about that on PR today but there are two things that really bother me about NATS even before I heard that they had access to affiliates private information.

1. The first was the overly aggressive way the main man defended even the slightest criticism of his programs. To me that was totally unprofessional and completely unnecessary and made me wonder why he found it necessary to trash anyone who dared question his program and

2 Several guys who I respect in this industry and who carefully count every outgoing click found that somewhere between them and a major sponsor who used Nats a large proportion of the traffic they were sending was disappearing.

There was no hassle before the sponsor changed to the software but after the change there were some days when up to 90% of the traffic they were sending was not being counted.

Of course, after seeing everyone else who had a doubt getting slammed, they said nothing but simply changed their traffic to another sponsor who was not using NATS and once again those hits started being counted.

Thats just .02 cents from somebody who is no more than an interested observer.