So I’ve been working with the cjniche plugin. Overall, it’s a pretty good plugin, but I definitely have some issues with it. I noticed that a few of my requests were getting the dreaded PHP warning:

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in
/var/www/wouldnt/you/like/to/know/wp-content/
plugins/cjniche/cjniche.php on line 79

Want to see if it’s a wide spread problem on the interwebby? Check out this Google search on the topic.

The line number may vary with yours, I added some extra special customizations to the plugin. Googling around on this, I see constant references to this error relating to this plugin. I also see crazy recommendations like deactivating and reactivating the plugin. Reminds me of the ‘did you reboot your computer’ and if the answer it ‘yes’, you follow up with ‘how many times’. Odd how some things just go away. Well, I wasn’t buying it.

It is true if you add a space to the advertiserIds or dork up your CJ Key you’ll get the same error, but I was experiencing intermittent errors. It would work a few of the times, then not work the other times. That would have NOTHING to do with variable values stored in the database. I did some digging (which is hard with this particular plugin since they encode everything.. really?).  I was able to get to the root of the problem.

If you’re getting this error every time, the plugin is not receiving a proper XML response CJ and that is why the foreach is blowing up. Unfortunately, the plugin is not checking for a good product set return from CJ and just explodes. Now, if you’re getting this error some of the times, the problem is very similar. I was able to echo the XML returning during a failure and this is what I saw:

[error-message] =>; The server is currently at
capacity or down for maintenance. Please try again later.

Wow, now that helps shed some light on the problem for sure. Looks like CJ is having problems. This is my biggest irritation dealing with CJ’s datafeed. I’ve mentioned that in the past that it’s just not reliable. This plugin is nice for something quick and if you’re working with small data sets or small merchants, this probably works really well. If you’re dealing with larger product catalogs, the keyword filtering is obviously going to take longer and probably cause issues with many requests. Now this is an assumption. I’m not sure if yesterday and today are the only two days having problems.. who knows. What I wanted to do with this post was shed some light with the PHP error and this plugin. I definitely see mention of it in many places.

I’ve written some error handling in the plugin to catch vs. explode when this occurs, but I might need to work on a caching solution to fall back on a stored data set if it has trouble.

Related posts:

1. Simple modification to FD Feedburner Plugin
2. BANS – security issues are being addressed
3. CJ web service issues – unable to access WSDL (UPDATE)

Twitter is a incredible application for affiliate marketers. It has the ability to widely connect you with targeted individuals for offers or to generate traffic to your sites.

There is a “catch 22″ with it though. How effective Twitter is related to how many followers you have, but to develop a Twitter presence can be difficult. If you’re too ’spammy’ with your offers, you’ll lose followers, and that is your audience.

Like the sites I build, I always feel that they need to offer something to the viewer. A benefit to the person is the reason why they’re coming back. Twitter is no different. You should engage and interact with your followers. Generate a community, while slipping in a offer or two. The draw to the follower is because they genuinely care what you have to say. Your Twitter account shouldn’t be just spammy offer list, with each ’status’ being a link to a service or product.

Create a Twitter account that focuses on a interest or niche of your and then try to develop a small following. Engage in the conversation. Grow the account and hopefully in a little bit of time you’ll be able to send some targeted followers to your site or offer.

Getting targeted followers is really the key. One way is to use search.twitter.com and search for conversations that your niche is about and begin following those users. The other is to go to hashtags.org and find similar hashtags related to your niche. I personally use a tool called Bird Feeder, which will search for tweets matching your search criteria (you can also search by hashtag as well). It’s absolutely fantastic, and I recommend it to anyone wanting to increase their follow count. I recently wrote a review about Bird Feeder.

Just like everything, Twitter takes time, energy and effort. All of these are key to creating a quality twitter profile. Good luck!

Related posts:

1. Twitter Followers
2. Racheting up Twitter follower count
3. Bird Feeder for Twitter Review