'Thin' blogs

[arms]

like boingboing. very little unique content mostly linking out to and quoting other sites.
strikes me as the perfect format for affiliate marketing.
short posts, so more time finding relevant products, less time writing 'articles'.
onsite seo is basically done for you if you are using blog software, rss.
perfect for people with short attention spans.
i'm guessing this works especially well for fashion, where female shoppers might looking more for suggestions rather than a catalog.

some examples: engadget (i don't know if they are using affiliates), shoeblogs, uncrate.

[SEOidiot]

probably why the celeb blogs do so well

they are often just a brief comment on a pic from another blog or source

[arms]

exactly. small paragraph, picture, link, lots of ads.

[tykoon]

In the latest edition of Revenue Magazine (which you can get a free sub for here   /section/Free%20Subscription?sc=home) there is an article about a woman who runs several affiliate sites, around 50 I think.

You can see her portfolio of sites here  /portfolio-of-sites/

If you check these sites out, they are very "thin" on the whole IMO.

So in fact it would not be hard at all to produce something similar, especially if you already have a niche in mind and merchants that you know convert.

tyk

[SEOidiot]

Seen them before somewhere im sure - blatant spam but for some reason people seem to think this is legit marketing

If it looks like spam it is spam (not that i have any issues with that - would be kinda hypocritical of me eh?)

Have a look at the baby one - wheres the content - there is more valuable content on my scrapers than on there!

[dink]

Blatant spam + backlinks = $

[SEOidiot]

lol your telling me that Dink    

[OneOfEm]

Seen them before somewhere im sure - blatant spam but for some reason people seem to think this is legit marketing

If it looks like spam it is spam (not that i have any issues with that - would be kinda hypocritical of me eh?)

Have a look at the baby one - wheres the content - there is more valuable content on my scrapers than on there!

If there's any information that would interest a reader who has a real interest in the topic, it's not spam to them, and they're the ones who count.  Many of my "thin" sites get 3-4 times the traffic (and clickthroughs) as my in-depth article sites.

It seemed strange to me at first, too, but I don't argue with numbers.  I think it has to do with the inherent short attention span of Internet users as a whole.  Who knows?

[SEOidiot]

sorry my attention span didnt make it through your post