Information Week had a good article about the affiliate marketing session at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. Always great to see our industry get positive play in mainstream media. I blogged earlier about the panel which was moderated by Lisa Picarille of Revenue magazine and included Stephanie Agresta (Affiliate Karma), Cam Balzer (DoubleClick Performics), Sam Harrelson (Sam Harrelson Consulting), and Jeremy Wright (b5media).

Information Week: Web 2.0: Changing Affiliate Marketing

Lisa covered the session over at the RevenueToday Blog. Web 2.0: The Affiliate Panel. Lisa had this to say regarding the evolving role of affiliate networks in the 2.0 equation.

“Cam Balzer, vice president of search at Performics, talked about the value and scale provided by the networks. I took the position that in a maturing industry the role of a middleman (which the network is) can often be challenged from both ends (in this case merchants and publishers). And that if the networks are not able to keep up with implementing changes and leveraging the latest technologies, others will step in and fill in the gap. For me, that’s great news. That sort of market pressure (hopefully) keeps the networks on their toes while the competition (or serious threat of it) means that publishers can expect innovations and that if there is a gap or a problem – some third party provide is going to step up to the plate with a solution.”