Affiliate programs are interesting. The idea is to reduce the customer acquisition cost by paying small sites to promote your own site and pay them on a cost per action basis. Examples of this are www.flysiden.no , www.flybilligst.com , www.bestepriser.com and more. They present existing information in a new way and earn money by generating sales for the companies that run the affiliate programs. A good place to learn more about affiliate programs is: http://money.howstuffworks.com/affiliate-program.htm

Today I testet Keyhole.com. It's amazing and scary. In the movies Enemy of the state and Minority report, we see how the government can track down individuals using advanced satelite pictures. This is now available to the general public through Keyhole. I tried it and I was able to see the cars parked outside the house I lived in when I went to PLU. Truly amazing. Google has acquired the service and will develop it further. Google's search technology combined with a powerful imagry service like Keyhole will be an interesting combination. If you add GPS on all mobile phones, anybody can see where you are at any given time. I need to read George Orwell's book, 1984;)

Yesterday I quit my job as Director of interactive marketing at Norwegian. It's been fun and I feel I have accomplished alot. During my time at Norwegian, we have:

• made www.norwegian.no one of the most visited websites in Norway
• increased the online booking percentage from 50% to almost 80%
• launched a successful e-mail marketing program
• reduced the response time to customers by over 150%
• become highly focused on tracking marketing campaigns
• implemented a new online booking engine that makes it easy to book airline tickets
• received recognition for being the best airline website in Europe (in Norwegian)
• received recognition from the Norwegian Consumer Agency for being customer friendly (read more).
• become visible in all the major search engines through organic and paid listings
• grown passed SAS Braathens(the largest airline in Scandinavia) in terms of internet traffic
• in cooperation with hotell.no become the major player for hotel bookings in Norway
• been invited to tell the story about the success of www.norwegian.no (read more)

My next job will be at studentrabatt.no ANS, a company I co-founded in 2000. Revenues are up and finally I can work full-time with my own business. To be continued..

Spring is coming. Summer is around the corner. Hiking is wonderful. I think walking stimulates the mind and brings new perspective on the world. Yesterday I met my mom to look at new cars for both of us:) Since neither of us really care about what type of car we drive, we went on a walk instead. A wonderful walk around a lake in Oslo(Sognsvann). After the walk, we ate lunch and talked. Today I bought a new baking oven. The new one is very nice, but I doubt that I'll start making alot of quality meals.

What a wonderful Easter vacation! Emma and I spent 3 wonderful sunny days in Lillehammer. We got up early every morning and went skiing in the Olympic downhill slopes of Hafjell. We spent alot of time with my brother and his family.

I've started to read "Intelligent Investor", a book written by Warren Buffet's mentor Ben Graham. It's a different book than what I usually read so it will take som effort to complete.

On another note, I've been following The Word of Mouth Marketing Association. WOMMA focuses on word of mouth marketing techniques such as the art of honest, authentic two-way communications with customers. Blogs, communities, viral marketing, buzz, evangelism, word of mouth, and other new techniques are creating a fundamentally more open relationship between businesses and the people they serve. I will be following these guys closely. Very interesting...