That’s right folks! The producers of Top Affiliate Challenge are about to close a deal with Russwood Chrysler of Lincoln, NE to give the winner of Top Affiliate Challenge a 2 year lease on a brand new2008 Jeep Patriot!

The Jeep Patriot is the replacement for the Jeep Cherokee. Its a pretty fuel efficient vehicle (for an SUV). Russwood is also going to provide each team on Top Affiliate Challenge a minivan to shuttle them around Lincoln on the various challenges that will take place.

The Patriot starts off in the mid-$20,000 price range and goes up from there based on options.

Check out this video. Its a sandbox commercial that Jeep released for television to promote the new 2008 Jeep Patriot.

Here are some other images from the Jeep website:

So how motivated are you now to get a seat on the web’s first affiliate marketing reality show

We’ll be waiting on your auditions

We are aware that some of the audition videos on the site are leading to 404 pages.  This is an issue with Ruby on rails (the software that runs our website) and we are looking into the problem as we speak.

Please be patient while we address the issue into the evening tonight.  I will let everyone know any progress we make before tomorrow morning.

We had a rash of people using copyrighted music in their audition videos over the past couple days.  Revver is very strict about filtering out videos that violate artists’ copyrights.

It also takes our staff a lot of extra time to filter through which videos have been pulled from Revver and ask the contestants to resubmit.

Please do not infringe on the rights of artists in your videos.  If you have a video online right now that does violate a copyright, I would strongly suggest you upload a newly edited version of the video ASAP so your audition stayts in the system’s rotation in case Revver finds and pulls your video.

Over the past three days more than 15 super votes have been purchased by contestants.  From what we hear behind the scenes, contestants are taking the advice in the Top Affiliate Challenge Strategy Guide.  alliances are being forged in the forum already and those who are participating are doing quite well.

Yesterday we received 5 new video submissions that are in process today, and one of them received a base score of 6.  How secure are you with where you are at in the top 10 today?

With only 10 percentage points separating the #1 spot from the #10 spot, the introduction of 5 new videos tomorrow should really shake things up!

We have added a little more chrome to the Top Affiliate Challenge website over the past couple days.

First, you may have noticed a new “Statistics” link above the videos on the user pages. We always intended to make the voting process transparent.  We want people to know they can trust that the voting is accurate and there is not behind the scenes manupulation going on.

What we did not think about was that if our reporting was 100% up front, that information could be used to develop and test mechanisms to game the voting process and give a contestant an unfair advantage.

We bridged that divide by installing a time delay.  We are providing statistic information that tells you the average value of the votes people are casting on your video, the number of supervotes you are benefiting from, and the base score that was awarded to a video, but it is slightly delayed.  The delay makes it more difficult to use the information for neffarious purposes.

Secondly, we have introduced trends in the top 10 widget that sits in the website’s left sidebar.  This will tell you if you are trending up, down, or no change (note to our visually impaired users - these trends are represented by a grahic that does not have alt text - we will address that on Monday).

The trends are calculated by measuring all of the votes you have received in the past 2 hours and comparing those to your overall vote totals.  Note that this trend only measures open votes and is not impacted by super votes.  Hence, it is possible for someone to move from last place to first place by purchasing super votes while still “trending down.”

I have some new videos to share with you all this weekend, and hopefully will have some audio from a radio interview to post as well.  Two new videos going up tomorrow

Fresh off the presses, we just received a signed contract from Pepperjam Network.  They are sponsoring one of the Top Affiliate Challenge Teams which leaves one team sponsorship left.  (The second one will be announced as soon as we have the signed contract in hand).

That means that four lucky contestants will be branded in Pepperjam Top affiliate Challenge shirts on arrival and will carry the banner of one of the fastest up-and-coming affiliate networks in the world.

If you have not already done so, you really need to establish a Pepperjam account so you can get a feel for the offers they have in their network.  You don’t want to be the only one on your team who unprepared, do you

As you can now see on the auditions page of the Top Affiliate Challenge website, there are a LOT of users who signed up for accounts but have not uploaded auditions yet.

With audition submissions closing June 1 ( 53 days from today!) time is short to get your audition in and get into the top 10.  We will accept new auditions through June 1, and voting stops on June 15.

We have decided to sweeten the pot a bit to encourage those of you who might be dragging your feet.  Joel Comm has taken Top Affiliate Challenge under his wing and has offered to give a FREE copy of his acclaimed Secret Classroom DVD set to one of the people who has submitted an audition to Top Affiliate Challenge.

I was the second runner up on the Next Internet Millionaire and it has served as an inspiration for Top Affiliate Challenge in many ways.  I was present to hear the instruction of all but one of the gurus who appeared on the show, and I can tell you that the Secret Classroom DVD set is a must-have for any aspiring internet marketer.

Take the Top Affiliate Challenge staff for example.  One of our video editors asked if he could take a look at my copy of the secret classroom and he started watching the DVDs with his family every night.  Now his wife and children all want to blog,  their entrepreneurial fires have been stoked, and they finally understand the excitement I personified when I came home from the Next Internet Millionaire.

You can get your hands on the FREE copy of the Secret Classroom by simply uploading an audition video to the Top Affiliate Challenge Website.  On April 14th - this coming Monday - our programming guru Adam will select one person’s audition video at random as the winner via a PHP RAND function script.

In English, all you have to do to enter is get a video online ASAP!  This DVD set is a $500 value and Joel Comm was extremely generous to give us this as a prize.  Take a moment to thank him by visiting his newly redesigned blog at http://www.joelcomm.com and posting a thank you comment.

If you need some extra time to get your audition together, we have another free gift coming up soon from Eric Holmlund, the director of the Next Internet Millionaire.  Stay tuned….

There has been a lot of discussion on the accuracy of the voting system and the exact definition of what a super vote is. Rather than typing about it all day long I thought it might be easier if I just explained it in a video. Take a look at the video below and feel free to post any questions you have as comments and I will get right on them.

The last of the voting system patches was installed today to take care of some cosmetic things (pages not loading on redirect properly, etc…) Every legitimate vote that has been cast has been counted. Remember that your overall score is based on an average multiplied by your base score. Depending on the number of votes you have and their value, you may need more than one super vote to effect real change in your score.

If you haven’t already done so, check out the strategy guide for some awesome super vote strategies. A few potential contestants have already bought theirs and are employing the lessons of the guide to get into the top 10 and stay there. As a side note, every person who has purchased the strategy guide is now in the top 10. What are you waiting for?

We have implemented a new system which should all but eliminate automated voting.  Rather than trying to stop robo-voting from coming through the front door, we let it happen then eleiminate the fraudulent votes directly from the database.

The only thing you might notice is that now your scores update on 5 minute intervals instead of real time.  This will prevent robo-voters from getting even a short-term benefit for their efforts.

I just wanted to let all of you know that we listen to your concerns and take the integrity of our voting system very seriously!

That’s right folks!  The long-awaited Top Affiliate Challenge Strategy Guide is now available for purchase.

To buy your copy, visit
 http://www.topaffiliatechallenge.com/strategy_guide.

The strategy guide is the “Top Affiliate Challenge Bible” and it explains everything you would ever want to know from EXACTLY how votes are calculated to suggested strategies for getting more votes and exposure for your video.

The guide sells for $49.99 and all of the proceeds from the guide go DIRECTLY into the needs of the show.  This is NOT a profit center for us.  Top Affiliate Challenge never has been about an info-product, and this strategy guide does not change that one bit.

The guide is about 50 pages long.  Here are  list of the chapters and some of the items that are covered in each chapter:

• Introduction by Thor Schrock
  • This is a nifty behind the scenes story that helps you understand where the idea for the show came from
• What is Top Affiliate Challenge?
  • Technical description of what the show is and how it works
• How the Audition Process Works
  • Technical description of how the audition process works behind the scenes
• What Should I Include in my Audition?
  • What the producers are looking for in an audition
  • How to get a higher base score on your audition
  • Technical tips on producing a good video
  • How long should my video be?
• How the Voting Process Works
  • Descriptions of the different types of votes
  • Voting tabulation formula
  • The MASSIVE importance of the base score
• Suggested Audition Strategies
  • Some tips on how to make your audition stand out
• Suggested Audition Promotional Strategies
  • How to get more people to watch your video (and vote!)
  • Outside the box promotional efforts
• How You Can Help the Show
  • Things you can do to help yourself and also help the show be a success

That is the guide in a nutshell, and as you can see it is JAM PACKED with information that will give you an edge.  we estimate that about 1/3 of people who audition for the show will purchase the guide.  The tips and hints in the guide will give those who purchase it a massive advantage over those who do not.  Take advantage of this opportunity now!

The only thing left for you to do is decide if you think you can wing it on your own or if you believe that the producers of the show have thought of things you might not have.  It will be interesting to see how many of the final 12 contestants in June ended up purchasing the strategy guide!  (and no, we are not tracking that now)