Today, we took the company to the Alamo Drafthouse today, to celebrate and reward everyone for a job well done. If you aren’t familiar with the Drafthouse, you should check them out. They’re pretty famous for their unique movie plus a full service food/drink experience, not to mention their special treatment of customers.

The folks at the Drafthouse did a great job putting together a custom afternoon for us. When we arrived, they took our drink orders just like they normally do during any movie showing, then there was a fantastic pizza buffet. We also get to order a few gluten-free options too, so that everyone could partake easily.

Then we watched Chronicle (which is subtitled “What are you capable of”). Pretty good movie (7.1/10 on RottenTomatoes.com, if you’re wondering). Definitely recommended if you like suspenseful thrillers. It’s pretty crazy though… like “wow, did that really just happen?” crazy. I’ve posted the trailer below, if you’re interested.

More importantly though, we took the time to take a half-day as a team out of the office (and right in the middle of an important Q1), to say congratulations and thank you to the team.

The team has been doing really great things for our clients. It’s amazing to see the things people can do when they’re all focused on and committed to the same goal.

Thanks team! We’ll do it again soon, I’m sure.

By the way, we’re hiring. If you’re interested in joining the team, please review our job postings and let us know what you’re capable of.

With the beta release of our new AdRevolution API in late 2011, we’ve been growing quickly, and there’s a lot of demand from our marketing partners to meet face to face and get to know each other better, as well as from new folks that we’ve never met to learn more about who we are and what we’re up to.

Our team had many great conversations about our vision and how we’re going about executing on that vision, and we couldn’t be more thankful for the support we’re getting from everyone.

We’re also seeing some shifting in the affiliate marketing world. There were lots of new companies (at least new to us) at Affiliate Summit that we got to learn more about, which is always great.

Missy Ward and Shawn Collins again did a fantastic job of putting together a fantastic show. Thanks to both of them for another great show.

We’re looking forward to Affiliate Summit coming to Austin this May for the first time. If you’re planning on coming to town for that show, let us know. We’d love to show you around the town that we love so dear.

And if you’re interested in the API, give us a call: 512.473.8979 x341 is my direct line.

These significant statistics only amount to one afternoon of volunteer work. Imagine the amount of help we will provide to the local Austin community as our AdRevolution Volunteer Team continues to rock its participation in our new Workplace Volunteer Program. It is exciting to see my co-workers with such a willingness to rearrange their key work responsibilities and take the time to not only help a great non-profit organization, but the community itself.

“It was great to see that food was being collected to feed people that would have otherwise been thrown out. There was a strict process to ensure only safe products were being boxed up for deployment. Overall, it was great to see how the Capital Area Food Bank worked with multiple pipelines to get this food out to the people who need it.”

- A.J. Westmoreland, Systems Technician

“My favorite part of this experience was how everyone was excited and motivated to volunteer and get the job done. From the moment we were trained on the tasks, everyone was on their toes and working hard. I know everyone felt great at the end of the day and were happy we had the opportunity to do this. I can’t wait to do it again!”

- Audi McGookey, Software Developer

“It was amazing to see how many people in the company stepped up to contribute to helping the community. It made me proud to be a member of the AdRevolution team!”

- Seth Weisfeld, Co-Founder and VP, Products & Solutions

The Capital Area Food Bank had us sort donations, giving us a “behind-the-scenes look at how donations from the community get to hungry Central Texans,” to prepare for distribution to various Partner Agencies. It is extremely easy to sign up to volunteer as an individual, workplace, family, or student organization. All you need is the drive to make a difference and a few minutes to get signed up at the Capital Area Food Bank of Texas’ volunteer interface to create an account.

While it might be entertaining to write a post regarding the melodrama, I remain optimistic about Yahoo!’s potential.  My argument is simple: if Yahoo! can properly manage and monetize its Mail Platform, it stands a fighting chance at living on in a world of web 3.0.

In the meantime we’re still swimming in web 2.0.  The current buzz surrounds three key themes: mobile, social and local.  I’ll focus on the social side in today’s post.

What is a “social network”?  Literally speaking it’s a group of people that we connect with.  Colloquially speaking, we think of a social network as a place on the internet that we connect with friends and colleagues (Facebook, LinkedIn), post pictures of various events (Facebook, Flickr, etc), setup times to meet both existing friends as well as strangers (Evite, Facebook, Meetup) and tweet 140 character messages to whomever will follow us to the ends of the digital earth.

I think of a social network differently.  I am of the narrow generation that clearly remembers a world without the internet and yet grew up with it so closely that we view it as vital to our lifestyles.  We also appreciate it more than my sister’s generation (class of 2009).  For her, the internet was always fast, it basically always worked, and when you searched for things you generally found them!

To me, a social network is a fabric of real connections; it’s a tool that enables me to connect with the people that matter most, both personally and professionally.  Do I send Facebook messages to family members about our most important events?  No.  Do I send LinkedIn-based emails to my closest business contacts?  Never.

My social network lives in two places: My iPhone, and my email client.  I have some 100+ people in my cell phone that I know will almost always call me back within 24 hours, if not instantly.  If I call their cell, it’s probably important.  I have some 500+ people in my Google Apps / Gmail accounts that will generally respond to my emails within a few days.  This is my network.

I agree with Carol Bartz that Yahoo! Mail is one of the largest social networks.  I also believe that it’s the most underutilized social network.  While many of us “tech folks” prefer Gmail, we consistently see 35-60% of our clients’ email lists dominated by Yahoo! Mail accounts.  This means that the users that repeatedly respond to online advertising skew heavily toward Yahoo! Mail users.  While their credit scores might be lower, they shop online and do so regularly.

Email marketers will spend over 1.5 billion dollars this year on marketing that is estimated to drive some 40:1 ROI on the backs of Yahoo!’s platform.  Yahoo! will extract little to none of the benefit.

Yahoo! is stuck unhappily married to the crazy model of selling “remnant” banner ads to the highest bidder in exchanges that single handedly enable retargeting and behavioral targeting providers to drive tremendous profit margins selling data that Yahoo! already has but can’t/doesn’t use.

What should Yahoo! do?

1. It’s not popular amongst email marketers, but Yahoo! should immediately start charging all companies that want “white listed” (preferred) inbox delivery status.  Facebook charges a 30% tax on all platform transactions, and frankly it’s their right.  Email is no different.
2. It should cooperate with retailers and other users of behavioral targeting to go “direct to the source” and leverage the data Yahoo! has implicit in its network to sell Yahoo! mail inventory at premium rates (this is what the retargeting companies are already doing, but with much smaller data sets).

Yahoo! still has a chance to be important in a web 3.0, data-driven world.  Properly leveraging Yahoo! mail is a critical key to that success.