I would like to take the opportunity to introduce myself and tell you a bit about myself, who I am, where I came from and what I am doing to make my living.
I was born and raised in (East) Berlin/Germany. That was the communist part of Germany. I was in 9th Grade and 15 when the "Wall came down" on the 9th of November 1989. Less than year later did East Germany cease to exist and Germany was reunified after 45 years of separation and cold war pain.
I moved to the United States in May 2000. I am currently living in Fresno/California and work for VisionOne, Inc.. I also have a company together with 2 Friends and Partners called Mediapolis, Inc. Both Companies are Internet Businesses. I got my Green Card in September 2007 (after over 5 years) and founded my own company Cumbrowski Consulting, LLC in October 2007.
VisionOne, Inc. was specialized in custom development of enterprise Web Solutions, primarily eCommerce and Content Management Solutions. We developed Sites like BevMo.com, the online home of Beverages and more! and Gottschalks.com, a large department store chain.
VisionOne changed their business focus after the dot com crash in 2000/2001 when the once existing flood of custom development projects almost dried up entirely. VisionOne decided to explore a different market and started working on the development of the Browser based Event Ticketing Solution. The Solution had no name at the beginning, was then called "MyTicketPortal" until it was finally named "ShoWare". The brand "ShoWare" is now used and advertised by all VisionOne units around the world. Online Ticketing as ASP Solution Provider is the core business of VisionOne USA today.
Mediapolis, Inc. owns and operates the Comparison Shopping Site ConsumerMatch.com and offers next to hundreds of Merchants and Millions of Products, Coupons and Special Offers which are available on the Website, as RSS Feeds and Opt-In Email Alerts. ConsumerMatch.com started as Shop-Links.net at the beginning of 2001.
ConsumerMatch.com generates revenue via so called "Affiliate Programs". We have with about 2/3 of the Merchants listed at the Website a business, "affiliate" relationship. Mediapolis, Inc. receives commission or a referral bonus if a visitor of our site finds an offer he likes, clicks on the link that redirects him to the offer and takes an action desired by the Advertiser. This could be a purchase, Email list signup or filling out an application form. We are called an Affiliate or Publisher and because of this, are we able to provide our services to you, the consumer, free of charge.
Advertisers, usually Merchants, are the counter part of affiliates. The Affiliate and the Advertiser have each something the other one does not has, but desires. In an optimal affiliate partnership both parties benefit from it and grow and prosper together.
I had the opportunity to see the business from the view as an Advertiser as well, when I managed the Affiliate Program and affiliate relationships for BevMo.com. I did this for almost 4 years, between 2002 and 2006.
I gained a lot of experience in Affiliate and Internet Marketing. It also provided me with a broad spectrum of knowledge in Internet Marketing and Affiliate Marketing in particular.
I am since July 2006 a blogger at ReveNews.com, a respected News Source in the Internet Marketing Industry and since October 2006 an Editor at SearchEngineJournal.com.. You should check them out, if you are interested in Online Marketing.
Cheers!
Carsten Cumbrowski
Internet Marketer and Web Developer
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