Miro is an open source video podcast player that sits on your desktop. It is a fabulous program and one of my favorites as it works on Linux, Mac or Windows and has provided me with countless hours of video feed aggregation (works via bittorent) over the last few years (it was the Democracy Player before being rebranded as Miro last year).

They're doing something very interesting via affiliate marketing, Amazon and Firefox to raise money for the non-profit org that runs and develops Miro now:

Just install this Firefox extension and anytime you shop at Amazon.com a small portion of the proceeds will go to support Miro (it doesn't cost you anything). Try it out and help us build the open source video world.

Then, they include these notes at the bottom of the clever iheartmiro.org page:

# The extension works by simply adding our referral code to the URL when you browse on Amazon.com. When you buy something, the Amazon referral fee is donated to PCF, a 501c3 non-profit.

# This extension collects absolutely no information about who you are or where you browse -- the connection is always made directly to Amazon.com. You are 100% anonymous to us.

# It's super easy to uninstall.

# Once you install it, that's it. When you shop at Amazon.com, a portion of the proceeds will suport our work. You don't have to do anything else.

# If you follow an Amazon referral link from someone else's site, this extension will not override their referral code.

What do you think? I think this is affiliate marketing at its best and hope to see other open source projects or non-profits explore monetization practices this way.

You can basically subscribe to any video podcast through Miro. I can't say how much I love this application, so if you haven't tried it out for your video blog needs (they're currently featuring 3383 of them), give it a go.