AffiliateForce/2004: A Closer Look

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By Jaime Gottlieb

Outside of the political spectrum, there aren’t too many names these days that can produce a fierce response from a broad array of individuals. But after a series of recent conversations with a few industry insiders, I hit on one name that seemed to fit the bill.

“If you ever want to see people start throwing drinks at each other at a cocktail party mention [him],” Tony Fiore, the CEO of Net-roamer, suggested to me in an exclusive interview. “You’ll get about sixteen different violent opinions.”

The man he was talking about was Herby Olschewski. The former President of ICCWorldWide, Olschewski is more notoriously known as the man who headed up a series called AffiliateForce. Back in 1999, Olschewski had a vision to create a society for all affiliate marketers, an organization that was dubbed the Internet Affiliate Marketing Association of which AffliateForce was an outgrowth.

The first of these conventions was AffiliateForce/2000, which included educational training and seminars for affiliate marketers from March 15-17 of that year. It gained much attention from the affiliate community and was dubbed by Olschewski himself as the “Woodstock for affiliate marketers.” Though considered a flop by some (attendees I interviewed remarked on cheap folding chairs and low attendance rates), to many others it seemed as likely a conference to find success as any other.

The three years that followed the inaugural AffiliateForce event brought more Olschewski backed conferences to the fore, ones that included 3 and 4 day cruises to the Bahamas and elsewhere. In 2004, plans had been made to add a land based portion to the event, to be held at the Radisson Miami Hotel in April of that year. Money was paid upfront by some participants; plane tickets were booked, schedules rearranged.

And then something apparently went very wrong: funds allegedly went missing. And so, it seems, did Herby Olschewski.

So what happened? How did an event that had garnered a fair amount of praise and trust in the community end up inspiring rants of rage on the AffiliateManager.net forum and elsewhere? I was determined to find out.

Complete article at http://www.adbumb.com/adbumb144.html