5 ms·

Reminds me of http://www.viglink.com http://www.viglink.com Basically Referly and Viglink add their affiliate codes to links for applicable ecommerce sites, co

Reminds me of http://www.viglink.com http://www.viglink.com Basically Referly and Viglink add their affiliate codes to links for applicable ecommerce sites, collect commissions and pay link publishers (sharers and bloggers) a cut. I'd prefer to just run a plugin on my machine and circumvent both of them by taking a commission on the purchases I make through any of those merchants as paid out by the plugin creator. Would end up like a custom linkification on ecommerce links https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/linkification/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/linkification... In all cases I wonder what TOS dictates for applicable sites. I think with Amazon they don't allow manipulation of urls containing affiliate codes already implanted. add: if there is an idea I'd like to see, it'd be some sort of automatic coupon code insertion at the end of a checkout on any number of sites. Perhaps a way for those codes to then be verified to have worked. If the system worked, that would arguably distribute benefits rather than concentrate them as with Viglink and Referly. Coupon codes are a popular and useful segment but as yet unreliable and unconsolidated.

lifeisstillgood 14y ago
Coupon codes, vounchers et al all have one simple aim - to segment the market into two different purchase price points. (there is a spolsky article on this somewhere) Anyway the point is there is extra effort in collecting codes, clipping the vouchers etc. If you get the voucher automatically added then there is no benefit whatsoever to the company, do it enough, the coupons go away. Who will collect the codes? Will you enter them into the plugin?
- adrianwaj 14y ago
  Just have a plugin like https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bugmenot/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bugmenot/ that works with http://www.bugmenot.com http://www.bugmenot.com and instead of suggesting logins it suggests coupons. (add: in fact look at bottom of bugmenot -- retailmenot - wow, never knew about it: I wonder if it works well with the plugin) I don't know how the mechanics of the plugin are going to work but it'd do 3 things: suggest codes for the correct field, send used codes back and whether successful or not, also check whether used codes are already in database. Who supplies the codes? E-commerce sites to distribute a new coupon codes, and they could also tag certain fields for the plugin to suggest upon and tell it their coupon submit page. What happens if ecommerce sites don't actively participate: it doesn't matter people will give to get. In fact, there could be a karma system: supply a working coupon and get karma the more it is used. Use someone else's coupon and lose karma. The only hard bit is working out where a code must be entered and determining if it was successful - but sites don't change that much and that could be crowdsourced.
  - lifeisstillgood 14y ago
    So if you made it "social" then the plugin would feedback to saversrus.com where your account would say - saved 15$ today - your code uploads were used by 235 people and save them 3457$ I like it :-)
    - adrianwaj 14y ago
      Yeah, so do I, the issue is gaming, verification and security. I just don't know how it could be pulled off without underlying sites cooperating with custom markup. Maybe if people gave their logins to shopping sites to saversrus, it could go in and check underlying records for the savings made and coupons used.. like how billguard checks banking sites for errors in credit card bills. At least here a plugin wouldn't need to be used or it could be an alternative to one, and backoffice logins could be used to check purchases and coupons that occurred in the past.
utnick 14y ago
I think referly actually uses the viglink api to do what it does
sawyer 14y ago
Take a look at http://www.retailmenot.com/ http://www.retailmenot.com/ for coupons. There's no browser plugin that I'm aware of, but I've used a number of their coupons successfully.

lifeisstillgood 14y ago

Coupon codes, vounchers et al all have one simple aim - to segment the market into two different purchase price points. (there is a spolsky article on this somewhere) Anyway the point is there is extra effort in collecting codes, clipping the vouchers etc. If you get the voucher automatically added then there is no benefit whatsoever to the company, do it enough, the coupons go away. Who will collect the codes? Will you enter them into the plugin?

adrianwaj 14y ago
Just have a plugin like https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bugmenot/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bugmenot/ that works with http://www.bugmenot.com http://www.bugmenot.com and instead of suggesting logins it suggests coupons. (add: in fact look at bottom of bugmenot -- retailmenot - wow, never knew about it: I wonder if it works well with the plugin) I don't know how the mechanics of the plugin are going to work but it'd do 3 things: suggest codes for the correct field, send used codes back and whether successful or not, also check whether used codes are already in database. Who supplies the codes? E-commerce sites to distribute a new coupon codes, and they could also tag certain fields for the plugin to suggest upon and tell it their coupon submit page. What happens if ecommerce sites don't actively participate: it doesn't matter people will give to get. In fact, there could be a karma system: supply a working coupon and get karma the more it is used. Use someone else's coupon and lose karma. The only hard bit is working out where a code must be entered and determining if it was successful - but sites don't change that much and that could be crowdsourced.
- lifeisstillgood 14y ago
  So if you made it "social" then the plugin would feedback to saversrus.com where your account would say - saved 15$ today - your code uploads were used by 235 people and save them 3457$ I like it :-)
  - adrianwaj 14y ago
    Yeah, so do I, the issue is gaming, verification and security. I just don't know how it could be pulled off without underlying sites cooperating with custom markup. Maybe if people gave their logins to shopping sites to saversrus, it could go in and check underlying records for the savings made and coupons used.. like how billguard checks banking sites for errors in credit card bills. At least here a plugin wouldn't need to be used or it could be an alternative to one, and backoffice logins could be used to check purchases and coupons that occurred in the past.

utnick 14y ago

I think referly actually uses the viglink api to do what it does

sawyer 14y ago

Take a look at http://www.retailmenot.com/ http://www.retailmenot.com/ for coupons. There's no browser plugin that I'm aware of, but I've used a number of their coupons successfully.