The concept being Favorite Thingz is simple. You recommend your “favorite things” on your web site or profile via a badge provided by Favorite Thingz and you get a small commission or referral fee when someone buys one of your favorite things by clicking on the supplied badge (though it’s not quite as straight forward as this, as I’ll explain in a moment).
The badge creation process is pretty simply. First you need to select your favorite things, which you do by selecting them from a database. Items are categorized by band, brand, celebrity, game, movie, online service, player, school store, team, TV show and web site. You can add your own items manually.
Once you’re happy with your selection, you can then customise the badge (change colors, name text, footer, border and transition).
You also have the option of creating an account, which obviously you’ll need to do if you want to recieve a commission. Finally, you’re provided with code that you place in your profile to display the badge. The badges are pretty nifty and display a number of items, as you can see below (may not be visible in feeds).
The products are actually supplied and sold through existing online stores such as Amazon and Buy.com, so what’s happening is that Favorite Thingsz is actually acting as a broker and making a cut along way. In the case of Amazon products, you’re offered a commission of 2% to 2.5%. Amazon has its own affiliate program, which offers referal fees starting at 4%. If you were in this just to make money, you’d be better off signing up as an Amazon affilate.
The other thing you should know is that you don’t get a commission on everything you recommend, only on the products that are available though one of the participating online stores.
Still Favorite Things does make the referral process very easy, and the badges produced look cooler than the badges offered by Amazon, for example.
An interesting site, but if you’re into affilation programs, you’re probably better off going to the online stores direct. On the other hand, if you just want to make cool badges to show off the things you’re interested in, Favorite Thingz is a great, easy-to-use site.
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