Hit Exchange NewsThe pulse of the traffic exchange industry

(Special note: I wanted to send my thoughts to the people of Haiti during this horrible time. If you can donate, you can. Any little bit helps…You can use your cell phone to donate $10 billed to your cell phone via the American Red Cross. Simply text the word ‘Haiti’ to 90999 to make your donation…)

It’s been almost a month now since our last issue of H.E.N. and I do apologize so much for the lack of content.

I’ve had quite the ‘interesting’ start to the decade, I’m not going to go over all of it but just wanted to thank everyone for their prayers and thoughts.

I’m back, very focused on the year ahead and look forward to meeting the new faces and the new leaders that will shape this industry in the new decade ahead.

Traffic exchanges, yes folks, are still here. They still grow. They still are talked about, used, purchased, surfed, linked to and yet I don’t feel they have reached their full potential…

The new year brought on the exciting addition of Thumb Vu to the industry. I love when something creative is added to the traffic exchanges and ‘The Vu’ is something new and refreshing.

Only a few days in and it’s been a wonderful success story with a bright future ahead. That’s the ‘message’ I think this year should be about…Creativity. Let’s take these programs further than they have been before. Push the envelop if you will. Get some creative juices flowing and see where it takes us…

So for 2010 let’s get our heads together and bring out some new features, new concepts and new growth strategies to make this year the best ever in the T.E. industry. I look forward to seeing what YOU have in store =)

Thank you very much for being a reader of Hit Exchange News and have a wonderful week!

Jon Olson
The Traffic Exchange Guy

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The News

- Speaking of creativity, Kym Robinson and Randy Ritter have come up with an amazing new mod for their traffic exchanges and are planning on offering it to the masses for a fee. What’s the mod? The ability to give loyalty bonuses for the duration of your upgraded membership. Want more bonuses, stay upgraded longer. Very cool new feature and something I like to see…Creative juices flowing.

- I got an amazing idea from Mike Gartner and Austin Hallock last month and finally got around to getting it added to I Love Hits. Have you surfed lately? Seen the surf bar there? That’s right, fully sponsored ’surf bar images’…Neat huh? It’s all about branding folks =)

- Paul Kinder and William Brant held the mother of all traffic exchange surf promos over the Christmas and New Year holidays. 15 traffic exchanges got together for an amazing ‘15 Days’ to give away thousands of dollars in prizes and thousands upon thousands of free credits. Thanks guys, it was a blast to be a part of it!

- And finally, in this week’s news I ‘kind of’ re-launched The Pizza Plan by giving it a new version of the e-book. You may want to log in and check out your rebrand status as well as some of the programs did change. I added both Traffic Wave and TE Toolbox…Plus a few extra tidbits and tips. Enjoy it!

- Notice: Cast your vote today for your favorite traffic exchanges at Affiliate Funnel’s Surfer’s Choice ranker. This is YOUR voice and YOUR opinion on what traffic exchanges you feel are the best in the business. Be sure to vote every day and get your opinion heard!

- Splash Page Hall of Fame – I really think Thumb Vu is special…Here’s some proof! Note: Why do I focus on splash pages every week? Simple, you MUST be using them in the traffic exchanges to get results. Get a custom made splash page by clicking here!

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The Famous Hit Exchange News Top 10 (Disclaimer: These are my top performing exchanges for the past week. Alexa rankings and fancy numbers have nothing to do with how I rank my list. This is based on my results and my opinion, nothing more, nothing less.)

1. StartXChange
2. Thumb Vu
3. Hit Safari
4. Traffic Era
5. Traffic Splash
6. Max Traffic Pro
7. Tezak Traffic Power
8. Traffic Punk
9. Easy Hits 4 U
10. Dragon Surf

Note: Analysis and Tracking by T.E. Toolbox – The Official Link Tracking Service of Hit Exchange News!

Question: Hey Jon, how come I Love Hits and SWAT Traffic are never on the top 10 list? Since I own them, I feel it would be a conflict of interest to place it on any of my rankings. (But we all know how great they are anyways lol)

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Deep Thoughts – Jon’s Weekly Ramblings

2009 – My Year In Review

I’ll be honest, this past year I got VERY lazy and my heart wasn’t in the right place for most of the year. Personally, I had a ton of offline stuff I was dealing with and while it’s no excuse it did hurt my businesses. However, the birth of TE Live near the end of 2009 helped salvage a lot and I’m VERY excited for the future of the internet’s first daily T.E. talk show…

Here’s some other notables events over the past 12 months…(Disclaimer: Yes Lynn, I know I had a few of these flip flopped in your blog but this is what I meant to say LOL)

Traffic Exchange of the Year – StartXchange. Tim Linden has grown his traffic exchange into one of the most loyal memberships on the internet today and for good reason. StartXchange rocks. Features, contests, blogs, forums, surfing chat, team surfing…You name it, this place has got it. Combined with Mr. Linden’s dedication to his craft, this exchange really showed the world what CAN be done when you put your surfers first…Always!

Traffic Exchange Owner of the Year – Tony Tezak. Is there anyone else you could give this too? Maybe but Tony embodied everything I try to teach and talk about in Hit Exchange News, Affiliate Funnel and TE Live. He took years, developed his PERSONAL brand. Started to build his network. His lists. And then launched (with the help of the KRM team) arguably the most successful upstarts this industry has ever seen in Tezak Traffic Power. Amazing work sir, here’s to an even bigger and better 2010!

Thing That Me Go Hmmm – Hit Silo. O.K. before my buddies at Logiscape tear me a new one, let me explain. The ‘pitch’ on this new traffic exchange was the introduction of commissions to a Logiscape program. I just do not know why they couldn’t add it to Traffic Era which in my opinion is one of the best traffic exchanges in history. THAT program was a game changer and maybe because these guys launch such stellar stuff we expect everything they do to be gold. Not saying Hit Silo isn’t solid, it is, but there could have been so much more here.

Wish I Had That Idea First Award – CB Pirate. Oh wow, this thing rocked! From the moment Soren told me about this product I knew it would be ideal for the traffic exchanges. A ‘push button’ product that did the selling, all you had to do was advertise the pre-made squeeze pages…Months after it’s launch it still generated hundreds of dollars a week in commissions for my business. Amazing stuff and I wish I had that idea first…

The ‘Thank God 2009 Is Over Award’ – Cash for surfing. Wow am I ever glad to get out from that mess. I know some people still may go ga-ga over surfing for pennies but I lost MAJOR focus when I caught the cash for surfing craze and it almost destroyed the industry. Ya I said it. Wanna make money for surfing? There are so many more effective ways…

That’s it for the review. Hope you enjoyed it. Here’s once again to a very prosperous 2010. May the clicks be with you and let’s go show the world what we can do…

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Things That Make You Go Hmmm…

- Rumor has it Mr. Rob Ghering is about to launch something new…Looking forward to it sir!

- I’m looking to giveaway some prizes this week. Comment below on what your ‘high and low’ was for 2009 and you may win a book of your choosing from NetMarketingBooks.com. I will pick the winner in a few days and let you know via email if you win.

- “Told myself time and time again, This time I’m gonna win…” – Love T.K.O. – Teddy Pendergrass (R.I.P.)

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