Charity Begins At Home Page

I’d been thinking about joining Amazon’s Associate Program. I was considering this because I thought, if I’m going to be reviewing music, it’d be nice to make a little money, assuming anyone is dumb enough to take my advice.

Problem is, I don’t really want to encourage people to shop there. They have a great website that I browse often, but there’s still the whole problem of them patenting things they shouldn’t. And, besides, when it comes to CDs, you can usually find them cheaper at other places. So, I don’t feel comfortable profiting from sending people to Amazon. Unfortunately, Amazon is the only large web site with a decent program. Barnes & Noble’s program has too many restrictions, and Half.com is only interested in new customers. I do plan to sign OKMensa up as an associate, which I justify by the fact that A) They need the money, and, B) “Mensa has no opinions.” But I’ve run into a snag with that, so there’s no telling when that will happen.

Then I had an idea. If I could find out the associate IDs of charities, I could use those in my reviews. The good would offset the bad. There would be balance in the force. Or something. Anyway, turns out I’m not the first person to think of this.

This is probably something I will build into the next version of Blog Goat. You’ll have a list of IDs, and when an Amazon or Barnes & Noble link is dropped in the entry, one of the IDs will be added to it. And the world will be a better place, one link at a time. :-)