Sometimes even the simplest tasks can only be performed using the right tools. There’s no point in using a chain saw when a paring knife will do the job.

These are not reviews, ratings or recommendations. It’s just a collection of software, services and tools that we’ve come across and wanted to share with you. Here they are in no specific order.

T3Report.com

CyData Services Inc., based in Austin, Texas, has taken its competitive analysis reports that detail the linking relationships of websites, previously sold exclusively to the online adult industry, and adapted them for the affiliate and performance marketing space.

Called T3Report.com, the subscription service performs its own spidering of the Web to gather data from more than 100,000 Web pages. The service can offer its subscribers competitive market analysis about who rivals are linking to and who is linking to them. It would allow affiliate managers with merchants to see the affiliates of their competitors. And the idea is to then target those affiliates to also join their programs or possibly emulate the strategy of competitors, according to officials at CyData.

The company claims all of the data gathered is publicly available, but previously it was hard to obtain – mostly because other services such as Google and Alexa go through only the first 1,000 pages of relevant data, leaving much data untouched.

There is a full-featured version as well as a light one of the offering, which can be subscribed to on a quarterly basis. Users pay to access the T3Report.com online system, which the company claims can be easily navigated by even novices after a brief tutorial.

The pricing is based on the number of domains in the report. For detailed analysis of less than 500 domains, the price is $2,700 per quarter. Pricing goes up for more than 500 domains.

The full version gives subscribers three levels of domain-linking information. For example, users would be able to find out who Walmart.com links to, who is linking to Walmart.com and then who links to those linking to Walmart.com. The light version does not delve as deep and offers only the first two levels of linking information for the user.

The company claims that, given an affiliate network link, the product can map that to the merchant, basically revealing what is in the “black box” with the affiliate network. This works because networks use LinkSynergy.com as the linking domain by affiliates, and then they redirect to the merchant. T3Report.com has more than 650,000 LinkSynergy links in its database, with more than 5 million added each day.

For each domain, the product can show how many unique domains link to it as well as the number of links. These statistics can reveal how many websites are promoting a specific merchant.

Company officials claim that they can spot all the websites that belong to a specific affiliate and track which products they are promoting. And given the same product on two networks, they can show which is doing better as far as promotions by affiliates.

ReturnOnAffiliate.com

These days communication is a big issue for online marketers. Return on Affiliate, an online affiliate marketing meeting space, is attempting to bridge the gaps of this industry and bring affiliate marketers, managers and associates together in a single place to communicate.

ReturnOnAffiliate.com is a community that includes message boards, instant messaging, private messaging, the ability to link to other members, invite friends and colleagues (like LinkedIn) into your circle, as well as the ability to create blogs. It’s free to set up an account, and members have access to searchable profiles of Return on Affiliate members.

Just one month after launching at the start of 2006, the site had more than 700 members. The groups include all types of affiliates, merchants and industry types. Everyone from working moms to Overstock.com executives are members. The site is attempting to use the popular social-networking concept to make managers, community leaders and even CEOs accessible to affiliates.

SimpleFeed Version 2.6

SimpleFeed (www.SimpleFeed.com), based in Palo Alto, Calif., unveiled an updated version of its SimpleFeed RSS service.

The new release (Version 2.6) rolled out in February builds off the company’s most recent major upgrade (Version 2.0), which came out in November. That edition was aimed at giving marketing departments more options for personalized content and increased control over the management, measurement and branding of RSS feeds by using templates as the basis for creating collateral to communicate with customers. By using templates, users are able to publish RSS feed that look like their websites, including the same images, colors, fonts and the like that customers use.

SimpleFeed Version 2.6 includes a handful of new features and functionality such as secure feeds and the ability to automatically import content as well as a light version of the product.

Like the previous release, SimpleFeed continues to publish RSS feeds through a URL that is unique to each subscriber. Version 2.6 now offers content creators the option to require a security code or authentication. Those feeds are also sent out over a secure SSL link. If a specific Web portal doesn’t support such authentication, such as Yahoo, then only a summary of the feed, not the actual feed content, will be sent. The next version of Windows – called Vista – along with Microsoft’s forthcoming upgrade to Explorer, will both support passwords and authentication.

The product’s new Web Import feature also allows content creators to put together RSS feeds another way. Users can choose a specific page number or a page range and the SimpleFeed software will automatically spider the user’s website to pull out the correct content. That content will then be queued up to be published on the site and then subsequently pushed out in an RSS feed. This functionality enables content creators to skip the step of putting together RSS feeds manually or with templates.

SimpleFeed is also offering a light version of the product, which gives users less reporting functionality. (Users get eight reports rather than the 48 that are included in the full-featured Enterprise version.) Users of the light version do not get a fully templated RSS feed. The feed is in a template, but it cannot be changed or fully customized. Company logos can be added to feeds, however. Company officials say the light version is a good way for smaller businesses to evaluate the technology at a reasonable price ($100 per month per feed).

The product also builds on capabilities from the previous version, including SimpleTag, a personalization technology that enables customers and prospects to subscribe to content categories using checkboxes on an uncluttered subscription page. The product’s Measurement and Analytics Suite sports 48 customizable reports providing insight on key RSS statistics such as subscribers, content views and clickthroughs. Feed Publishing and Management is a Web-based tool that allows feeds to be created and managed without any prior technical knowledge. New privileges provide companies with granular control of users and workflow and can readily comply with corporate communication policies.

The Affiliate AIM List

Here’s another way to facilitate communication via a very simple concept. Affiliate AIM List (AffAimList.com) is a list of the AOL Instant Messenger handles of people in the industry. Members opt to sign up and are then added to the buddy lists of all other members. That allows everyone on the list to see who is offline or logged into IM and then contact them directly.

The Affiliate AIM List was created by affiliate Adam Viener to facilitate communication among the many different parties comprising the affiliate community. Viener, president of search marketing affiliate IMWave, is a fan of AOL Instant Messenger from way back and thought the communication tool would be a great way to foster bet

ter and more frequent communication between people. The list is not a money-making vehicle but more of a community service, Viener says.

To date, it’s been well-received, and the ever-growing list boasts some high-profile industry leaders from top companies including Circuit City, Commission Junction, eBay, Fat Wallet, HomeGain, KowaBunga, LinkShare, Performics and PrimeQ. Viener says that while he’s getting lots of requests to be added to the list, only two users have asked to be removed.

SmallPalace.com

VentureDirect Worldwide recently launched its newest online lead-generation portal, SmallPalace.com, which is aimed at the home finance and home services markets.

Mortgage refinancing has exploded into one of the fastest-growing sectors of the financial services industry. In 2005, one-third of all homeowners used cash- out mortgages to refinance their homes, and more consumers are planning to divert discretionary spending to home improvements.

SmallPalace.com focuses on delivering Web-based, category-specific leads that are generated from applicants actively seeking information on new home purchases, mortgages, refinancing or a variety of home services categories such as home security and contractors.

The SmallPalace portal joins other online lead-generation sites developed by VentureDirect Worldwide, including Direct Degree (www.DirectDegree.com) for online education, Let’s Franchise (www.LetsFranchise.com) for franchise opportunities, and The Free Forum Network (www.FreeForum.com), a co-registration site.

Pic2Vid for Marketers

Sister Technologies, which provides applications and hosted services for the automated creation and management of multimedia marketing content for online retail and mobile environments, recently released its Pic2Vid for Marketers solution suite.

Pic2Vid is a Web-based solution that automatically generates streaming video content with voiceovers from digital photos and text, enabling online marketers to enhance each product and listing with attention-grabbing video clips.

The Pic2Vid for Marketers solution suite consists of two parts: Pic2Vid Hosted and Pic2Vid Enterprise.

Pic2Vid Hosted is a fully hosted, Web- based solution aimed at auction-site power sellers, small and mid-size retailers and service providers, and online marketers and affiliates. The company’s Pic2Vid Enterprise is a turnkey, scalable hardware/software solution for large brick-and-mortar retailers with significant online businesses, including auction sites, shopping sites and industry portals, as well as resellers such as aggregators, service providers, Web publishers and creative agencies. A demo of the Pic2Vid Consumer version can be found at Pic2Vid.com.

Sister Technologies is also working on a new tool, based on the Pic2Vid and “M- Plat” online editing platforms that will enable advertisers to create short video clips that would appear alongside organic search engine listings.

There are only a handful of steps involved in creating a video, and within approximately two minutes a user can create a 15-second clip that could appear beside their organic search listing or as part of a paid listing. Pricing is about 1 cent per minute of broadcast. A one- minute clip that receives a thousand views would cost the advertiser $10.