Any web developer knows that it's a lack of universal standards that can make designing and maintaining a web site unbearable. Startup venture VigLink says it's here to handle at least one consistent issue - keeping affiliate link programs bringing in the bucks. The service says it is going to go even further and recover affiliate dollars you didn't know you were losing. Sponsor The company announced today that it closed a seed investment round and it has a laundry list of technology insiders as backers, including First Round Capital, Google Ventures, LinkedIn Founder Reid Hoffman, longtime Google executive and current LinkedIn VP of Product Deep Nishar and a number of noted technology entrepreneurs. CEO Oliver Roup and Architect Rodrigo Leroux co-founded the company in March of last year and Roup told us today that the company was set to go live in the next few months. At the moment, it is still in beta-testing, but we had a quick chat with Roup over what to expect. Affiliate Marketing VigLink is looking to stand on the in-between ground of affiliate marketing, betwixt merchants and affiliates. Before we move on with the what and how, let's briefly clarify our terms. In affiliate marketing , a merchant rewards an affiliate for traffic and pays commission on purchases made by referred visitors. Referring a friend to sign on with a cell phone company and getting $10 off your next month's bill is an example of affiliate marketing. In this case, the cell phone company is the "merchant" and you are the "affiliate" or "publisher". According to VigLink's web site, more than half of all affiliate links are improperly formatted, which means that the affiliate loses out on hard earned commission dollars. If the customer cannot be tracked, the affiliate cannot get paid. The service solves this problem with a JavaScript snippet inserted into the affiliate's web site, which makes sure all links are properly formatted. Changing the Name of the Game But while formatting affiliate-links properly can be a time-consuming pain, any web developer worth their salt should be able to handle the task. It's not here that the service is going to make a difference. CEO Oliver Roup told us today that the real focus is all the money that is being lost, not only on improperly formatted links, but links to sites with affiliate programs that your site is not enrolled in. "Every time a link leaves your site, value is being created," he explained. "You should be able to capitalize on that value." The interesting new twist that VigLink introduces to the affiliate marketing game is that you don't even have to know that you're linking to a merchant to make a commission. It's almost like having an agent. If a visitor from your site makes a purchase, VigLink keeps track and collects the commission for you, taking a percentage for itself. The company's success now relies on getting some big name merchants involved. Since the service is free to affiliate members, it won't take as much to get followers on that end of the spectrum. Pending that, we think that this is an idea that could be going places. Discuss

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Automatic Affiliate-Link Insertion Service Gets Google Backing

Over the weekend we had a chance to highlight

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Always Be Testing: 8 Services For Usability Feedback

As a leader in the Pittsburgh investment scene, long-time entrepreneur Mel Pirchesky is now using his experience to coach startups on fundraising and business strategies. According to his company Eagle Ventures , Pirchesky has raised over $45 million in his 35 years of structuring deals. In a recent guest post on the site Pittsburgh Ventures , Pirchesky breaks the art of the elevator pitch - a tool every young entrepreneur needs to learn to use - into an exact science tailored for the best results. Sponsor An elevator pitch is a term used to describe a short (usually about 60 seconds, or the time it takes to ride in an elevator) description or pitch of a product one is trying to sell or raise funding for. Pirchesky says an effective elevator pitch is more valuable than a well-written business plan. After all, who's going to read a business plan when the pitch didn't hook them? "Elevator pitches have two components - the first ten or fifteen seconds and the remaining forty-five or fifty," Pirchesky writes. "The objective of the first ten or fifteen seconds is to have your prospective investors want to listen to the next forty-five or fifty seconds differently, more intently than they would have otherwise." Pirchesky adds that the first section of the pitch should include two things - what it is that you or your company does, and something that adds validity to your or your company's value proposition. Finally, he suggests that you avoid trying to fill your pitch with too much information, to stay away from buzzwords and jargon, and to continually iterate and revise the pitch until all of the money is in the bank. If there is a great deal to be had, and no investors are biting, the problem isn't a lack of available funds - it's in how the deal is being communicated, Pirchesky says. "The key to effective, successful fundraising is to have your prospective investors hear what you say and understand the significance of what you say to depths of their bones," he says. Discuss

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Going Up! How to Ride An Elevator Pitch to New Heights

Not too long ago, personal finance tools like Quicken and Microsoft Money used to be bound to the desktop. Exchanging information with your banks used to be a hassle. Keeping track of credit card purchases was often a question of waiting for statements to arrive by mail and then entering data by hand. Today, free tools like Mint , moneyStrands and Wesabe make it easy to track all of this information. Thanks to this, you can now get a better overview of your personal finances than ever before. Sponsor Editor's note : This story is part of ReadWriteWeb's Personal Finance series, a weekly, three-month-long look at how the Internet has transformed personal finance. Up until April 15, which is the deadline for U.S. readers to file their taxes, we'll be looking at how personal finance has evolved, analyzing top web tools and posting video of our conversations with the people who are shaping the online world of personal finance. If you are interested in sponsoring the rest of this Content Series on Personal Finance, please contact our COO Sean Ammirati . Mint: Leading the Charge Currently, the two most well-known online tools for personal finance management are arguably Mint and Intuit's Quicken Online . Mint stood out from the pack early on because the company made it extremely easy to keep track of all your expenses. After giving Mint access to your bank and credit card account, the service simply downloads your financial information at regular intervals and organizes it. Mint can even track your 401(k) for you. Mint launched in September 2007 and quickly became the darling of the Web 2.0 world. Unlike most of its desktop-bound competitors, Mint managed to talk to virtually every bank and credit card issuer from day one. In October 2008, Mint came out of beta . Today, the company has more than 1.7 million registered users and sees roughly 700,000 active users every month. In October 2009, the company was signing up 30,000 new users per week. Mint's success didn't go unnoticed by the incumbent market leaders and Intuit acquired Mint in October 2009. In November 2009, Intuit announced that it would begin to phase out Quicken Online in favor of Mint. Microsoft suspended sales of Microsoft Money on June 30, 2009 and doesn't plan to compete in the market anymore . Correction : In December, Microsoft actually announced a plan to enter the personal finance market again with a Mint-like tool it is developing in collaboration with Citi. Beyond Mint While Mint gets most of the mindshare on the web these days, it's by no means the only player in this market. Indeed, the success of Mint has given rise to a plethora of similar tools and legitimizes the efforts of companies that tried to enter this market before Mint. ClearCheckbook.com , for example, launched in May 2006. The company focuses on bringing checkbook management online. A number of other tools are competing more directly with Mint. Wesabe , for example, also focuses on giving users an overview of how they spend their money. Sadly, Wesabe makes downloading your information from your checking and credit card accounts a bit more difficult than Mint. Since acquiring Exepnsr , Strands now also offers its own personal finance tool for setting up and tracking personal budgets and staying on top of your finances. Geezeo - which was founded in 2006, and also looks a lot like Mint, has a very strong focus on budgeting. Most of these tools focus on the U.S. market, but more and more of them are also now available outside of the United States. Kublax , for example, offers a Mint-like service in the U.K. Going Mobile Just like almost every other category of online tools, personal finance tools are also making the move to mobile. Mint and Wesabe , for example, offer both an iPhone app and mobile-optimized websites. Most importantly, all of these services are also able to send out alerts to your phone - either through push alerts on the iPhone or as text messages. Whenever you run the risk of exceeding your credit card limit, for example, these services will send you an alert. Of course, a number of banks have also gotten into this game and now offer their own mobile apps. The Bank of America , Chase Mobile and Wells Fargo apps are currently among the top 10 most downloaded free finance iPhone apps, for example. When it comes to paying your bills, apps like BillMinder and BillTracker make it easy to never forget when a bill is due. What's Next? Over the last few years, the web has clearly transformed the way we use personal finance software. Over the next few months, we will have a closer look at the current generation of personal budgeting and finance tools on the web. We will also analyze the current trends around online finance software. This is the first post in our upcoming series about personal finance. If you are interested in sponsoring the rest of this Content Series on Personal Finance, please contact our COO Sean Ammirati . Discuss

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How The Web is Transforming Personal Finance

Startups in the Boston area considering applying for TechStars Boston 2010 should bite the bullet and fill out that application today in order to receive an invitation to tomorrow's special meet and greet with TechStars mentors. The event, dubbed TechStars For A Day , will be held in Cambridge, Mass. and will provide startups with the opportunity to find out more about the TechStars program while getting some early networking under their belts. Sponsor While it isn't possible to make a definitive correlation between TechStars' events and nation's VC funding climate, the cities TechStars is based in - Boston, Boulder and Seattle - is were the money is flowing. In December, the Wall Street Journal reported that six out of the eight venture-backed companies that went public in 2009 were from outside of the Valley - two of which were from Massachusetts, one of which was from Seattle. In attendance will be Shawn Broderick , the executive director of TechStars Boston and founder/CEO of TrustPlus , TechStars founder and CEO David Cohen , as well as many other Boston mentors . The deadline for startups to apply for TechStars Boston 2010 is midnight, Jan. 11. Discuss

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TechStars Boston Hosts Invite-Only Mini-Camp on Jan. 5

The Web 2.0 world may seem at times like a glamorous, hip place. Services get wild attention. The names are something out of the space age. The companies work out of coffee shops and lofts. But the money has a way of running out before the entrepreneur can find a way to make a profit. No wonder the enterprise world can look so enticing to a Web 2.0 company. So, we thought it might provide some perspective by looking at companies that are showing signs of reaching into the business market or have made the big switch. Sponsor Posterous is a stylish miroblogging service that has gained attention for its ease of use, especially the simplicity in it as a publishing tool. We corresponded with the company today and were told that it will launch a "Posterous for Business," service. The news follows an update to Posterous that allows multiple users to create group blogs that allow users to post to a group page on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks. A company logo may be placed in the Posterous blog with a description. That's a big deal. Facebook group pages are becoming important for business users. It can be a bit clumsy trying to update to group pages from outside Facebook. This is an important development for the microbogging service, pointing to its entrance into the business market. Box.net started as a consumer service for people to store online files. In 2007, the company turned to the enterprise and has not looked back. In February, the company launched a new interface. Today, their client roster includes companies such as Nike, Oracle and Marriott. Its direction is pretty clear. The enterprise is where box.net sees its future. Xobni launched in January of 2008. The company billed itself as a social network for your inbox. Cool service. Today, Xobni places a good bit of its attention on the enterprise market . Xobni offers a service that allows administrators to provide Xobni for employees. It can be customized and has features to make it regulatory compliant. Control features are built into the service. In November, the company announced its integration with Salesforce.com. Xobni's future looks more and more like an enterprise play. No Going Back There is no looking back once Web 2.0 companies switch to a business focus. The business market is so entirely different than the consumer world. Free services can remain intact but once the move happens, it's rare to find a small company that can manage to dive deep into the enterprise while maintaining its focus on the Web 2.0 world. Some have been able to do it. WordPress is an example of a company that has had success with both consumers and the enterprise. Perhaps that will be the case with Posterous, too. Discuss

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Forget the Web 2.0 Glamour - the Money's in the Enterprise

It's been a month since PayPal released its global payment APIs and the company is already primed to make some new announcements at today's Le Web Conference. ReadWriteWeb caught up with VP of Product Development Osama Bedier for an early look at the company's latest announcements. Sponsor We've already seen some 3rd party apps at the Innovate Conference last month, what's in store for Le Web? We're announcing a few new partnerships including one on Philips' Net TV. As of Q1 users will see inline payment on their televisions. Others include Greendizer for seamless bill pay and invoicing, GetGiving for one touch charity donations and Training Course Booker for fast course purchasing. The IPTV integration is an interesting one and Philips doesn't seem like an obvious partner. What other types of partnerships do you have in store for us? Honestly, we're not only looking to partner with the big brands, PayPal also wants to enable innovation from the little guy. We know we'll reach success when developers exceed our expectations. We're looking to them to decide how it plays out. Without taking credit for other developers' work, there are some great areas to innovate in voice authorization, real-time mobile applications, shipping, consumer apps and coupons. What does the future of PayPal look like? We're launching an app store where consumers can check out new and convenient payment forms and merchants can purchase specific solutions. How is this connected to Le Web's theme of the real-time web? We're looking to provide real time payment options and support. As a global leader you've got every opportunity to dictate industry pricing on apps and merchant services. What is the percentage you're going to take off merchant purchases from the app store?" We're not sure of that yet. What we do know is that it's going to be fair. We don't want to take our cue from some of the other closed platforms. We're offering visibility, easy integration of payment and smooth transactions. We're not trying to be Apple, we want as much cross device, cross platform transactions as possible. We make our money off the transactions, not the applications. If the future of PayPal is about seamless app integration, then doesn't that mean that in a perfect world PayPal is virtually indistinguishable from the app? Not exactly. We offer developers security authorization. Consumers want to know that their money is safe. There are lots of other providers, but developers choose us because our brand offers a sense of security. We're leveraging the success of our payment brand and the developers are responding. For more info on Le Web, check out Social Media Club House Discuss

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PayPal Partnering with Philips for NetTV Monetization