Open all hours? Not Ocean!

A: It must be pretty much impossible – Following on from PrimeQ’s ludicrous decision to “pause” all operations so that they could perform an audit a few weeks ago, fellow Direct-Track based “me-too” network OA Direct (run by I Support Media Ltd, formally known as Ocean Affiliates, formally known as Clix, formally known as Stirling Rock), owned by Carl Knight (formally known as Carl Buckingham.. stop me if you’re lost yet!) decided that shutting down your network for the winter is a brilliant idea, and followed suit.

OA Direct will be “pausing” all its campaigns from Friday 19th October and informed affiliates via email that “the network will be unavailable from October 20th through to October 31st” – Surely it’s not too difficult to relaunch a network (even using me-too software) without having to shut the doors and turn off the lights a few weeks before?

Network hibernation is obviously the latest trend, and it’ll be interesting to see if any of the other “me-too” networks follow suit, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why anyone thinks it’s a good idea to turn your affiliates away, knowing full well they will drop your links and probably not put any new ones up, just to “relaunch” your network. You don’t see buy.at or Tradedoubler shutting themselves down every time they add some new functionality (or even major upgrades).

Affiliate Networks should be like Arkwrights shop – Open all Hours! And there’s no way he’d ever sh-sh-shut up shop just to give the front a lick of paint. He’d have Granville there working through the night. And it’s the same for networks – downtime should be kept to a minimum, and certainly should not run into days or weeks!

So, c-c-come on Carl.. f-f-fetch your cloth!

p.s. Found one of my fave lines from Open all Hours whilst looking for the Arkwright image… “G-G-Granville? How do you spell p-p-p-p-pepper? Is it six p’s or seven?”

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