It's The Heavy User, Stupid

One of the biggest problems that many marketers are facing is that they are too deeply invested in a questionable online philosophy.

The philosophy is centered on "social media" (blogs, networking websites, Facebook, MySpace, etc.) For the sake of this post, I’m going to call this philosophy New Age Marketing .

Whatever you call it, this philosophy centers around three hypotheses:
That online

Gleeful And Proud

Some commentors yesterday accused me of being unbecomingly gleeful over a Yankelovich study which showed that social media ain't all that fabulous in creating "conversations" about brands.I plead 100% guilty.Frankly, I'm fully fed-up with the incessant stream of baloney I'm exposed to about Web 2.0 and social media. Here's this week's nominee for grand marshal of the double-talk parade. From

Is The Conversation Over?

One of the axioms of Web 2.0 zealots is that "markets are conversations" and that online social media (blogs, networking websites, Facebook, MySpace, etc.) are uniquely capable of stimulating "conversations" among consumers.Just one tiny problem. They're wrong.On June 18, some facts arrived. And I think the social media maniacs are going to find the facts a little disturbing.According to The New

Two...Two...Two Blogs in One.

THE PHONELESS PHONEHey...old person...yeah, you...I have news.Apparently email is over. Done. Kaput.I discovered this slowly as my emails to my daughter went unanswered. When I asked about it I was told, "I never check my email."At first I chalked this up to standard teen pigheadedness. But then I realized she really doesn't check her email.I spoke to other old farts. I found out that some kids

The Long Trail of Baloney

Another pillar of Web 2.0 is crumbling. It looks like The Long Tail is just a tall tale.The Long Tail theory, developed by Wired editor Chris Anderson, proposed that the web made it possible to make more money selling niche products to niche markets than selling hit products to a mass market. In other words, Amazon could make more money selling erudite books to humanities majors than selling

Thank God It's Over

If you're a regular here at TAC, you know that since last December we've been railing against a series of web films created for the Ritz-Carlton (see Ritz Bits, Web Films vs Bagels, This Film Is Rated T For Torture, and Worst Of The Web.)Well the third and final film has been released and it's every bit as awful as the other two.First, it's in black and white, so you know it's "art."It features

One Year Later

Today is the first anniversary of The Ad Contrarian blog.Ten days into it I thought I had run out of things to say. Apparently I have a bigger mouth than I imagined.Five Things I've Learned About Blogging This Year:It ain't easy being entertaining every day. Or ever, for that matter.The biggest asset a blogger can have is insomnia.The professionals (the ones who blog for money) are way better