until today, i never fully understood what inspired seofangirl and co. to gush over the resident god-of-search at google. on his blog, matt cutts shared a revelation that made me weak in the knees: he really digs neil gaiman.
and if you don’t know who neil gaiman is, you’d best get reading.
unless your computer’s been broken for the past eighteen months, you’ve been beaten over the head by scads of helpful individuals reminding you that social search is the current it-thing in online marketing. so why are so many search marketers so far behind the curve on social media? for starters, we’ve got two primary disadvantages:
1.) we’re really good at non-social search. anti-social search, even. the kind where all we had to worry about was some guy sitting in front of his computer all alone (possibly in the dark), keying mundane queries into a search engine. he wanted to buy stuff, and maybe find some porn. easy enough, right? but here in the myfriendsterspace world of social media, he who has the most friends wins. and let’s face it: we were the kids who liked to read, act in drama club plays and do math problems for extra credit.
2.) by the time we’ve finally heard of something, it’s probably not happening anymore. back in the winter of 2004 (before it was swallowed by murdoch & friends), i knew a group of students/unemployed twentysomethings who spent nearly all of their daylight hours on myspace. at night, they all got together to discuss what had happened that day on myspace. talk about a captive audience. three years later, most people who maintain their myspace pages do little more than check for new messages, and immediately leave. that initial allure is gone; it’s no longer a cool thing to do on friday night. and though the audience for social networking sites has grown exponentially, that audience is now fractured across dozens of different outlets.
today a new york times article discusses the migration of young web users away from structured, regulated destinations like youtube and myspace, toward web sites without restrictions, standards and rules. sure, the various focus groups cited in the article attribute this phenomenon to decaying moral values. but the real objection of google, cbs, nbc and the other corporations mentioned? copyright issues, sure - but when you get down to it, the fact is it’s a hell of a lot harder to market to users on a web without rules.
the 16-24 crowd is no longer satisfied with simply watching XTREEEME snowboarders chug mountain dew brand soda and blast down the hill on tv. instead they flock to watch videos of themselves getting out of the driver’s seat and dancing around/on top of their still-moving vehicles. they write their own content, they sell their own messages, and they push their own favorite products. and even though a steady stream of internet marketers are trickling in to the party, most of us are still huddled together in the corner trying to think of something cool to say.
amazing - my humble beginnings have been live for less than a week, and already i’ve been hassled by David Temple and mistaken for Ward Tongen. is this what success feels like?? after spending my holiday vacation gorging on sugar and pursuing some horrifyingly domestic activities around the house, i’m back to work (and frankly not that upset about it). i’ve got a new post in the works for later tonight.