Can You Make Money from Affiliate Marketing? If so How?

Before I start, I would like to make one thing clear:

I do not believe in easy money and there is no magical tips in this article that will help you get rich overnight. So if you are after easy money then this article is not for you.

This article mainly covers the following topics:

• What affiliate marketing is and the different types of affiliate marketing
• The advantages of being an affiliate marketer
• Some tips and good practices to become a successful affiliate marketer

So, can you really make money from affiliate programs? Well yes and no; there is money in affiliate marketing but if YOU can make money from it or not depends on a lot of other factors such as your commitment, experience, site traffic etc.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

According to Wikipedia

“Affiliate marketing is a marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate’s marketing efforts”

Basically, you as a publisher will be rewarded when you help a business by promoting their products or services. So for example, if you sign up for Tips and Ticks HQ’s affiliate program and promote it’s products then you will get a commission when the visitor you send from your site makes a purchase.

Affiliate marketing is probably one of the quickest and cheapest (not the easiest) ways to start making money online as you don’t have to create any products yourself. You simply link up a buyer and a seller, and you take a commission on the sale that has been referred by you.

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

When you join an Affiliate program and choose the products that you want to sell, sellers provide you with a unique affiliate code that you can use to refer traffic to the target site. Most affiliate programs will offer ready made text links, banners and other forms of creative copies whereby you only have to copy the code and place it on your website to start referring traffic. When interested visitors click on these links from your site they get redirected to the product site and if they purchase a product or subscribe to a service you as the referrer make a commission.

The sellers can track your performance through your affiliate ID and the affiliate softwares (eg. WP Affiliate Platform) that they use. You also have complete, real time access to all sales and commissions stats.

You don’t need to sell products all the time to make a commission. Different affiliate programs can use different payment terms such as:

• Pay per Sale: In this program a merchant pays you a percentage of the sale price when the purchase is completed.
• Pay per Click: In this program you get paid based on the number of visitors you redirect to the Merchant’s website from your affiliate site, whether or not a sale is made.
• Pay per Lead: You get paid once the referred visitors provide their contact information on the target site by filling out a simple contact form.

Why be an Affiliate Marketer?

Affiliate marketing is considered to be one of the world’s fastest growing and best internet marketing techniques to earn money online and I will explain why:

• Cost effective: Marketing on the internet is cheap and you don’t have to worry about the production cost as the product is already developed by the seller. You don’t need a physical business location or hire employees either.
• Global Market: Online marketing gives you the opportunity to reach people all over the world easily.
• No Fees: You don’t need to pay anything to join affiliate programs.
• No Storage No Shipping: You don’t need to worry about storage, packing or shipment of the product. They are all taken care of by the seller.
• No customer support: You don’t need to provide any customer support or deal with consumer complaints as the Seller does that for you.
• Passive income: A regular job can give you a fixed income as long as you continue to work. Depending on your marketing skill Affiliate marketing can create a steady flow of income even when you are not in front of your computer.
• Work from home: If you make enough money then you don’t have to worry about going to work at the same time every day or getting stuck in traffic. You can work in the comfort of your own home.

Tips on Becoming a Successful Affiliate Marketer

After reading all the benefits of affiliate marketing if you think you will be rich over night by selling affiliate products online then you are wrong. Affiliate marketing is definitely an excellent way to make money online but it’s highly competitive too. In order to be successful in Affiliate marketing you need to know the market needs, learn how to promote products, what works and what doesn’t. The following are a few tricks on becoming successful in affiliate marketing that I have learnt over time.

1. Only Choose a Handful of Good Products

The first mistake a lot of affiliate marketers make is that they register with too many different affiliate programs and try to promote everything. Pursuing affiliate marketing down this path can become very overwhelming and you won’t be able to promote any product properly. All you need in order to be successful is a handful of good products to promote. Try to understand the market needs and look for products that align correctly with the topic of your site.

2. Use Several Traffic Sources to Promote Products

Most affiliate marketers put up the ads only on their sites. There is nothing wrong with this approach but know that there are many other traffic sources that you can tap into and promote the products simultaneously. The more targeted traffic you can send to the sales page the more your chances are of making money.

Google Adwords can be used to drive targeted traffic to a sales page. You simply make an ad in your adwords account then use your affiliate link in the target page URL of the ad. Obviously, you will have to continuously measure the conversions and see if the campaign cost is less than the campaign profit in order to keep the campaign running but I am sure you get the idea.

3. Test, Measure and Track Your Affiliate Campaign

It is a very good idea to use different product promotion strategies so you can figure out what is working and what is not. Try to do split testing and measure the performance of each campaign then take actions accordingly. Changing a few things here and there can increase your profit dramatically. Make sure to place the banner ads on different areas of your site’s pages. Some positions will make the ads more noticeable than others.

Most affiliate programs will give you basic stats that you may need but there is nothing stopping you from using your own conversion tracking software too. There are many conversions tracking sofware out there that you can use to track your affiliate campaign.

4. Research the Demand of the Product

If you try to sell a product that is in low demand then chances are that you are not going to get many sales no matter how hard you try. So it is a good idea to spend a bit of time researching and finding out if a product that you are thinking of promoting is a product that your audience needs. If your site gets decent traffic then you can conduct an online survey and easily get input from your visitors.

5. Stay Current with New Methods and Techniques

Affiliate marketing is a very competitive field and people are always coming up with new techniques. Try to stay current with these new techniques and market trends otherwise you will fall behind.

6. Choose the Right Merchant

When you promote a product you also promote the person or the company who is behind the product so try to choose wisely. You don’t want your visitors to go and buy a product following your advice then come back unhappy. Do you think that this visitor will come back to your site and take your advice again? Most likely no; this can hurt your credibility in the long run. Usually, websites/company that offer good customer service will have better customer satisfaction so try to stick with promoting their products.

7. Use Helpful Tools

If you are serious about affiliate marketing then try to find tools that will help you be more efficient. There are many helpful tools out there. If you are using a WordPress powered site then consider getting a plugin similar to the Affiliate Link Manager.

Don’t just hope and pray that visitors will buy; setup everything correctly and make it happen! If you think that visitors will click on your affiliate links and buy just because you placed dozens of affiliate links on your website then you are wrong! You need to have a structured plan in place. Affiliate marketing is a business so you will have a much better chance of succeeding if you treat it like one.

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8 Steps for Building a Successful Internet Business Partnership

Many successful Internet businesses have some kind of partnership which is instrumental in the continued success of the business.

Whether you are currently flying solo or thinking of setting up your own Internet business, at some point you may need or want a business partner to help you expand or take your venture to the next level.

Putting the steps below into practice will go a long way in ensuring that your Internet business stands a greater chance of succeeding and your partnership lasts for the long haul.

1. Seek out the right partner for you and your business aspirations

Finding the right business partner is a much easier task when you have in mind what you want and need from people to make your business a success, and then put yourself in the right place to meet them. For instance you could set up or join a mastermind group or forum which contains other like-minded people which you can meet.

Similarly you could attend conferences where you can meet your prospective business partner(s) face to face. It is a good idea at this early point to know your strengths and then find a partner that can complement your strengths with their own unique strengths. (Discussed further in step 3)

2. Discuss with your prospective partner what each of you wants to achieve and accomplish with the business

Lay your cards on the table early and encourage your prospective Internet business partner to do the same. This will give both parties a clearer picture of the direction that each person wants to steer the Internet business and it will help highlight the motivations of each person behind the business partnership in the first place.

Some questions you could ask are:

• What do we want to offer to the world with the business?
• What sort of values do you want to instill in your business? Do they intersect with your partners values?
• What is each person bringing to the table in terms of motivations for creating the business?
• Where does each of you see the partnership going in the short/medium/long term?
• Will the partnership have a shared responsibility in the management of the business or will one person be responsible for managing the troops?
• How will money and work be divided up?
• What are the different hats or positions that exist in this business, eg, affiliate income coordinator, VP of customer service, VP of finance.
• Break up the org charts by roles and strengths first then divide up the roles that no one wants. This exercise alone can be very useful in identifying what can potentially be outsourced.
• Following from above, the org chart is a perfect place to put all of your outsourcing arrangements such as the names and details of your outsourced personnel.

3. Identify each others strengths and work with them to complement your Internet business

A successful business partnership, especially one that is Internet focused, usually relies on people with different strengths and skill sets working synergistically to achieve a common goal.

At the onset of the partnership, everybody should identify their skills and strengths as well as their prospective partner’s strengths and skills.

In a lot of cases you may be pleasantly surprised to find that the whole will usually be greater than the sum of the parts because of how well the skills and different perspectives complement each other.

It is crucial that in the beginning you play to the strengths of each person and highlight skills which complement each other.

As the Internet business becomes established, there will be a natural accumulation of new knowledge and skills across the partnership which will further enhance the partnership’s synergy.

4. Be very clear about expectations from the beginning

Similar to step 2 but subtly different. In this step you are identifying what you expect from each other as partners regarding the day to day operation of the business.

5. Start with a small project together to test the workability of the partnership

This is akin to the civil engineer building a model bridge to test the stresses and strains before committing large funds and effort to build the big bridge. The same should be done with your Internet business partnership.

Don’t jump into a big complicated or expensive project but start with something small at first such as a webinar or perhaps produce a video series on YouTube together or create and market a small product.

An exercise such as a real-life mini-project can quickly demonstrate whether the partnership will work or whether it needs some tweaking or whether it simply just won’t be tenable at all.

People react differently to things and little annoyances that might be present during a small project can quickly turn into big annoyances when the big projects start. Therefore if you feel that

6. Make things official

This might seem unnecessary if your business partner is a close friend or family member, but irrespective of whether you’ve known the person(s) for 3 months or 20 years, it is still a good idea to get the legalities and official side of your partnership defined clearly from the onset, even if it is a written agreement between yourselves.

For instance you could create a Legal Liability Company (LLC) which can be beneficial to the partnership on many levels such as tax and protection of liabilities for acts and debts of the LLC. (It is recommended that you do your own research about LLCs and other legal matters and seek independent advice from a professional before jumping into anything)

7. Create an Org Chart

In this step you are getting into the nuts and bolts of dividing up the work and tasks.

This step becomes more and more necessary as the business grows or becomes more complex.

This ensures your business is well organized and clearly defines who does what task:

• What are the different hats or positions that exist in this business, eg, affiliate income coordinator, VP of customer service, VP of finance.
• Break up the org charts by roles and strengths first then divide up the roles that no one wants. This exercise alone can be very useful in identifying what can potentially be outsourced.
• Following from above, the org chart is a perfect place to put all of your outsourcing arrangements such as the names and details of your outsourced personnel.

8. Have weekly meetings

This gives everyone the opportunity to catch up and ask questions or clarify any concerns.

Free conference calls can be made using Skype or you could meet in person if possible.

This helps keep things in focus and ensures the direction of the business is maintained.

I’m sure there are successful Internet business partnerships out there who may not employ all of the suggestions above but the fact is if YOU follow most or all of these steps then you will at least maximize the chances of YOUR partnership succeeding.

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3D laptops: Asus G74sx vs. Toshiba Qosmio X775

At the moment, 3D is the hottest thing in Hollywood, with most action and animated flicks coming out in both 3D and 2D versions. Game-makers have been a little slower in embracing the technology, but there are dozens of games that have been written for 3D viewing, including Activision's Call of Duty, Electronic Arts' Need for Speed, Prince of Persiafrom Ubisoft and Valve Corp.'s Portal 2.

So it's natural that 3D-capable notebooks should now be hitting the market, with the kind of specs and graphics capabilities necessary to handle fast-moving 3D animations and videos. (See our sidebar: "The basics of 3D".) Two of the most recent are the Asus G74SX and Toshiba Qosmio X775-3DV78, which I've run through their paces for this article.

These aren't systems meant for those who are looking to watch the occasional YouTube video. They are high-end systems with price tags that run close to $2,000. Still, if you're a 3D gaming or video enthusiast -- or if you plan to wow your clients with 3D presentations -- they could be worth it.

Size counts

The Asus G74SX and Toshiba Qosmio X775-3D78 are like monster twins from the laboratory of an evil genius: They are big, powerful and fast. And they are stretching the definition of what a notebook can do.

One thing is for certain -- no one will confuse either of these with a MacBook Air. At 0.9 x16.5 x12.7 in., the Asus system is wider and longer than the Toshiba, which measures 1.2 x 16.1 x 10.8 in. The Asus is a bit thinner in the front, but at the back, the system widens to 2.5 in. thick; the back of the Toshiba measures slightly less at 2.3 in.

While the Asus tips the scales at a hefty 10.2 lb., the Toshiba keeps its weight somewhat under control at 8.0 lb. That's still roughly twice the weight of the typical notebook. With their large AC adapters, the Asus and the Toshiba have travel weights of 12.1 lb. and 10.0 lb., respectively.

Asus G74SX from ASUSTeK

Price as tested: $1,950

Pros: Adjustable performance levels, good test ratings, good detail rendering, includes mouse and backpack, two-year warranty

Cons: Large and heavy

As you can imagine, getting to your next gaming party with either of these systems can be a chore. Neither will fit onto an airline table tray nor into the typical notebook case. Asus provides a black backpack with its system, while Toshiba sells several cases big enough to handle the X775 for between $60 and $90.

When I lugged each out for a day trip, I found that the bulk and extra weight was an annoyance (but on the other hand, these gamer-oriented systems were natural ice breakers at Starbucks).

I like the Toshiba's aggressive silver and red color scheme, rounded corners and striated skin, although its shiny surface was a bit too slippery for me (I actually dropped it once and put a nice dent into a brand new desk.) The bold speaker grilles look like they might be worn as jewelry by somebody with questionable taste.

By contrast, the Asus' case is flat black, has a more angular design and the company's Republic of Gamers logo prominently displayed. The surface has the feel of a rubber wet suit, which provides a more secure grip.

3D notebooks: Features

	Asus G74SX	Toshiba Qosmio X775
Dimensions (HxWxD)	0.9 x 16.5 x 12.7 in.	1.2 x 16.1 x 10.8 in.
Weight/travel weight	10.2/12.1 lb.	8.0/10.0 lb.
Processor	2.0GHz Core i7 2630QM	2.0GHz Core i7 2630QM
Graphics/VRAM	Nvidia GeForce GTX 560M/3GB	Nvidia GeForce GTX 560M/1.5GB
Display/resolution	17.3 in./1,920 x 1,080	17.3 in./1,920 x 1,080
RAM	12GB	8GB
Hard drives	Two 750GB 7,200rpm drives	500GB 5,400rpm drive/750GB 7,200rpm drive
Ports	3 USB 2.0, 1 USB 3.0, VGA, HDMI, headphone, microphone	3 USB 2.0, 1 USB 3.0, VGA, HDMI, headphone, microphone
Communications	802.11b/g/n, Ethernet, Bluetooth	802.11b/g/n, Ethernet, Bluetooth
Operating System	Windows 7 Home Premium	Windows 7 Home Premium
Warranty/Upgrade to three years	2 years/$100	1 year/$149
Price	$1,950	$1,900

Driving with 3D

In both systems, you can turn the 3D effect on and off using Nvidia's software; in the Toshiba, there is also a physical a switch and light above the keyboard labeled "3D."

Both laptops come with a pair of Nvidia's active shutter glasses. For viewing 3D content, Toshiba uses its own Video Player 3D while the Asus comes with Roxio's CinePlayer BD. To level the playing field, I installed and used Cyberlink's PowerDVD 10 player application on both systems, and watched several 3D movies, including Tron: Legacy, Gnomeo & Juliet and Alice in Wonderland.

They both worked -- to a degree. In both cases (with the help of the glasses), I could see the 3D effect from as far as about 10 feet from the computer's screen. Beyond that, the infrared synchronization system lost contact with the glasses and the LCD lenses flickered furiously.

If you're looking for the theater experience, keep looking. Rather than having items pop out of the screen, all the action on 3D rendered for computer viewing appeared to take place behind the plane of the display. It was just as real-looking, exhilarating and thought-provoking, but a little subdued.

As far as 3D gaming goes, both machines did quite well with Portal2, which is in its element when you're maneuvering in a tight alleyway, scaling walls or viewing large scenes. The extra depth really helped make it a more immersive experience.

Overall, it was more engaging than 2D versions of the games. At times I felt like I could reach through the screen and touch the items in front of me.

Using Instant Effects' FXD Interactive Media Player, I watched a 3D business presentation and edited it by relocating and rotating a variety of 3D elements, such company logos, a fanciful dragon and a fighter jet. I can see 3D increasing the impact of introducing a new product or part to potential customers by showing it at all conceivable angles. On the downside, each participant will need a pair of 3D glasses.

And as good as 3D can be, the glasses are a real pain. They are uncomfortable -- particularly if you already wear glasses -- cost about $120 a pair and can make even a super model look nerdy. Plus, they need to be recharged with a USB cable after about four hours of use.

Toshiba Qosmio X775-3DV78 from Toshiba

Price as tested: $1,900

Pros: Hardware switch turns on 3D, nice design, excellent audio, rich colors

Cons: Slippery case, memory tops out at 8GB

Interestingly, while the two systems were equivalent in maneuvering in 3D, when I was runningTrainz 2009, a plain old 2D game, I noticed that the Asus was able to render more backgrounds and details than the Toshiba could. At times, the Asus showed cars and bushes that didn't appear when the Toshiba created the same scenes; the Toshiba had noticeably more flickering as well.

Components and features

These systems are definitely high performers. They both come with second-generation Intel 2630QM Core i7 processors. With four processing cores and 6MB of on-chip cache, the CPU normally runs at 2.0GHz, but it can sprint to as much as 2.9GHz when needed -- for example, when aliens are ganging up on you.

Games are typically resource hogs that need a lot of system memory. The Asus test system came with 12GB RAM (it can handle up to 16GB); the Toshiba came equipped with its maximum of 8GB RAM.

Both are equipped with a pair of hard drives: The Asus includes two 750GB 7,200rpm drives while the Toshiba has a 500GB 5,400rpm drive and a 750GB 7,200rpm drive.

Each of these 3D overachievers has a 17.3-in. screen powered by Nvidia's GeForce GTX 560M graphics accelerator, which uses Nvidia's 3D Vision technology to do the pixel heavy lifting required for displaying 3D images. The difference is that the Asus is equipped with 3GB of dedicated video memory while the Toshiba offers 1.5GB.

To my eye, when I looked at the two side by side, the Asus display was noticeably brighter, although the color palette on the Toshiba was richer. For instance, the Toshiba offered deeper blues for its sky scenes and richer greens for grass.

Each of these gaming systems is topped off with a rewritable BluRay drive. The Toshiba adds LabelFlash technology that lets you engrave a label onto the disc if you use the special media.

Because these gaming machines are so big, it's a shame they don't have a better assortment of ports. They both have three USB 2.0 and one USB 3.0 port as well as VGA, HDMI and audio jacks. Neither has a DisplayPort nor an e-SATA connector.

Along with Gigabit Ethernet jacks, both systems have 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi networking and Bluetooth. The Toshiba takes the lead on audio with Harmon/Kardon speakers and Dolby Advanced Audio to produce sharper, richer and much louder sound. The Asus gaming monster comes with a Realtek audio chip as well as Creative Labs' EAX Advanced HD 5.0 as well asTHX TruStudio Pro, but just didn't get loud enough to impress .

A nice touch for late night gamers is that both of these systems have backlit keyboards that are also comfortable to type on; the Toshiba adds a light for the touchpad. The Asus, on the other hand, comes with a USB gaming mouse.

Performance testing

Thanks to its extra memory, the Asus achieved a 2,043.3 on PassMark's PerformanceTest 7.0 benchmark, well ahead of the Toshiba's 1,727.7 score. These are systems that have roughly twice the performance potential of the typical notebook, which tend to score between 800 and 900 on the same test.

On the CineBench 11.5 processor tests, it was a virtual tie. The Asus' processor and graphics scores of 39.9 and 4.9 were slightly ahead of the Toshiba's 39.8 and 4.8; these differences are unlikely to be seen in actual use.

3D Laptops: Performance test results

	Asus G74SX	Toshiba Qosmio X775
PassMark PerformanceTest 7.0	2,043.3	1,722.7
CineBench GPU	39.9	39.8
Cinebench CPU	4.9	4.8
Battery Life (hr.:min.)	1:46	1:25

Higher numbers are better

Despite having a pair of fans each, when the gaming got intense, the Toshiba system ran very hot, hitting 146 degrees F at its exhaust outlet on the left side. The Asus system kept its cool, never rising above 100 degrees F.

Incidentally, the Asus offers four system settings that let you choose the best compromise between performance and battery life; I did all my testing with the Asus set to the highest performance level.

The Asus' 5,400 milliamp-hour (mAh) battery ran for 1 hour and 46 minutes, 22 minutes longer than the Toshiba's 3,300 mAh power pack. In other words, make sure you do your gaming or video watching near an outlet.

Conclusions

Overall, there are three things that give me pause as far as these 3D notebooks go.

First, so far, 3D is a Windows-only show, with Linuxand Macs stuck in a 2D flat world.

Second, watching too much 3D action can make you feel queasy and cause headaches -- I found that an hour and a half was my limit with either of these 3D powerhouses.

Finally, there's price. At $1,900 for the Toshiba and $1,950 for the Asus, these are two of the most expensive portable systems available at the moment. Either of them costs the equivalent of four basic notebooks -- but there are few systems that can match the configurations and abilities of these gamers.

If none of these factors bother you, then both of these 3D notebooks can kick the butts of lesser notebooks when it comes to 2D and 3D gaming. They will appeal to slightly different audiences, however.

The Asus G74sx has the better configuration, with more RAM, storage space and video memory, and did better on our performance tests. It also comes with a two-year warranty versus one year of coverage for the Toshiba Qosmio X775.

However, the system is much bigger and heavier -- so large that, unless you're into weight training, the notebook's only travel will be from the family room to the kitchen or a bedroom. In fact, unless you need to move your gaming computer around the house, at that point you might be better off with a desktop.

On the other hand, the Toshiba Qosmio X775 is a less radical departure from mainstream mobile computing, with a case that's smaller and lighter as well as great audio. It still performed like a champ.

So in the final analysis, I'd consider the Qosmio X775 to be the winner by a hair. Although it is still gargantuan compared to most notebooks, it is the smaller of the two and still has the processing and graphics power to blast aliens, race down highways and soar to new gaming heights.

How we tested

3D computer technology is still new, so I adapted and enlarged my typical testing routine. On top of using each system for several weeks, watching 3D movies, playing 3D games and looking at 3D images, I used each for more mundane tasks like sending and receiving emails, writing memos, updating a Web site and editing video.

I started by measuring, weighing and examining each system and trying out each major feature. I also tried (unsuccessfully) to fit each onto a mockup of a typical airplane seat-back table tray and into a standard Brookhaven notebook bag, and carried each on a day trip out of my office.

I connected each wirelessly to my office network as well as public hotspots and a mobile hotspot.

While each system was running full blast, I found its hotspot and measured the temperature with an Extech Pocket IR non-contact thermometer.

I tested the performance of each system with an array of standard benchmarks. First, I looked at overall performance with PassMark's PerformanceTest 7.0 benchmark test. This suite of tests exercises every major system component, from the processor, memory and hard drive to the graphics. It then compiles the results into a single score that represents the system's performance potential. I ran the software three times and averaged the results.

I also ran CineBench version 11.5, a suite of benchmarks for graphics and processor performance. The software renders several photorealistic scenes that stress the processor and graphics chip by manipulating up to a million polygons. It reports scores for processor and graphics performance; I averaged the results of three runs.

To gauge the 3D abilities of each system, I put the glasses on and watched portions of three different 3D movies, played Portal2 and viewed a dozen 3D still images. Then I loaded Instant Effect's FXD 3D media player and interacted with 3D models by moving and rotating them. I finished by watching a 3D business presentation supplied by Instant Effects.

I also ran Auran's Trainz Simulator, a 2D railroad simulation package that is particularly resource intensive. I looked for jerkiness, shimmering, differing shadowing, levels of detail and items that were left out. Each system ran the simulation of the Canadian National Railway (CNR) Transcontinential route for a full day without a train wreck.

Finally, with a USB drive containing six HD videos connected to the system, I set Windows Media player to shuffle through all the videos while PassMark's BatteryMon charted the battery's capacity. I reported the average of three runs.

The basics of 3D

3D is based on the slightly differing views of the world that we get from our left and right eyes. Because we see the world from two slightly different angles, the brain's visual cortex creates perspective by integrating these images. The result is the 3D landscape we live and interact in.

The two notebooks reviewed here use a technology called frame sequential stereoscopic 3D that mimics the way we see 3D by sending individual images to each eye. Their Nvidia graphics systems create and display a stream of images that alternate between right and left frames that are intended for viewing by the right and left eyes.

This is where the funky black plastic glasses come in. Frame sequential 3D uses what are called active shutter glasses, which have a pair of lenses made out of small LCD panels. As the images switch from one meant for the right eye to one meant for the left eye, the lenses alternate between being opaque and transparent so that only one eye sees the scene -- 120 times a second. An infrared emitter on the system sends out a synchronization signal to the glasses to make sure it all works properly.

(Incidentally, these are not the same as the glasses you're given in movie theaters, which use lenses that work with images that are polarized by 90 degrees; each eye only gets the image that is correctly polarized for that eye.)

The result is that the brain is tricked into constructing a 3D world around this two-fold visual input. How well it works depends on the 3D movie or game as much as on the system it is played on. Without the glasses to get the correct frames to the correct eyes frame sequential 3D images onscreen look like a confusing double image.

If the glasses are a deal-breaker for you, by the end of the year, there may be a new generation of 3D systems that don't require the glasses. Some initial tries can be found in HTC's EVO 3D smartphone and Nintendo's 3DS game machine. Toshiba is also working on a glasses-free 3D laptop.

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