The post below was originally published on August 18, 2014. I've updated it and the publish date for educational purposes.

UPDATE: The video below was flagged (by someone or some thing) for a “Community Guidelines violation” in YouTube. I have a hunch it has to do with a hyperlink I placed in the Description of the video on YouTube itself.

It was a “JV Zoo” affiliate link. While an affiliate link could technically be considered a CG violation (one rule is that your goal isn't to take YouTube visitors off YouTube and onto another site), I doubt it was that.

My gut tells me it was the source of the link. You see, JV Zoo got hammered recently by some “trust issues.” I think they took care of it (jvzoo.com links got banned on Facebook for a while – not sure if that's still the case or not), but obviously there is collateral damage.

I'm sure at least one of JV Zoo's founders knows that term pretty well.

I could be wrong about the flagging. It could have been somebody pissed off about my reviewing somebody else's product. I don't know. But since YouTube's notification is so ambiguous and non-specific, I have to draw my own conclusions.

So the above is speculation on my part. It really doesn't matter though. I've appealed and we'll see what happens.

I don't even care if the video never goes back up. It was a one-time product offering from a personal friend. What really is a pisser is that having “one strike” against you on YouTube prevents you from running Google Hangouts for at least six months.

I'll let you know how this gets sorted. For the moment, I'm at the mercy of the big red machine.

UPDATE 2: I never heard a thing from either of the two-headed monster mouths (neither Google nor YouTube) messaged me about reinstating my good standing in the community.

The good news, however, is that I visited the Community Standards section (interestingly, not under Community but under Channel features) and my little red indicator had been switched to green.

So, for now, I'm good 🙂 Yay.

[leadplayer_vid id=”53F2C8705E094″]

Hi there, I wanted to let you in on a nifty little report that my friend wrote.

Samuel Mitaro is a copywriting prodigy. He started writing copy for local businesses when he was 17 and landed some pretty hefty clients. We're both in the San Francisco Bay Area, and if you know anything about the area, you know it's smack dab in the middle of some pretty interesting businesses, so even “local businesses” carry a lot of clout.

He's been writing sales copy for a few years and his clients have done pretty well. He put together a report that shows you how to write good copy, too. My review of his “Copywriting Shortcuts” ebook is in that (now removed) video above.

I think you're really going to like it. If you could see it 🙂

NOTE: Sam has taken the product off the market 🙁