Internet Marketing - Will we kill the web?

It is inevitable. Some argue Internet marketing is already past its point of diminishing return. Sure ecommerce is robust and growing at 10x+ better than bricks and mortar, but what happens when the noise level on the web exceeds our capacity to hear? Will we kill the web? Will the web kill us?

The web is already dead as Phil Simon notes in his excellent book The Age of the Platform. The days when a closed loop site of twenty or so pages not created by a celebrity could survive Internet marketing’s punishing competitive gauntlet are gone. If you love RedEnvelope as I do wave bye bye.

There was a day when a specialty gift site with 15,000 pages in Google, fair but not great product pages without social and a clunky staged shopping cart would rule the barnyard. That day is long past. How can RedEnvelope.com compete with a platform such as Etsy.com’s 137M pages in Google, aggressive email drip campaigns and enough UGC (user generated content) to choke a horse (or kill tiny competitors)? Answer: They can’t and neither will many similar small-ish specialty sites.

The Hubbing Of the Web
Linked: The new science of networks by Barabasi reads like War and Peace. There is so much pathos in Albert-Laszlo Barabasi’s book, so much Strum und Drang. I included a clip of Barabasi discussing how he wanted to extend Isaac Asimov’s Foundation reasoning – if we know enough math we can predict the future - in The Best SEO Is No SEO Prezi. The problem Barabasi found is there is never enough math.

The other problem is the future of any content network is non-random and so there is a set destiny, a twisting infinite funnel. The web’s twisting infinite funnel is the rise of the super hubs such as Facebook, Twitter and Google. Barabasi explains in a non-random content network principles exist that predict one future. Thanks to “proprietary linking” the rich get richer and the small get eaten (bye RedEnvelope.com).

The web I launched my first ecommerce site into in 1999 is long gone. In 1999 mere brochure site presence was dominate so having a fully enabled B2C and B2B ecommerce site stood out as special. FoundObjects.com (RIP) even pointed toward the platform era. We shared our customer list of cool boutique stores and achieved search engine listings that would be the stuff of dreams now. For about a year if you typed “cool stores in LA” or “cool stores in anywhere” FoundObjects.com was #1 or #2. What would the value of that result set be today?

Google Killed The Radio 
In 1999 typing “cool stores in LA” into Google meant everyone saw the same thing, the same results. Sadly, that day is gone. Google’s index floats on an infinite Sargasso Sea never making land and constantly churning with social, search and predictive fish snapping at our every step, thought and dream.

Google’s floating of their index increased the speed of the web’s inevitable destiny – HUBS. The tricky part about becoming a magical hub in a universe where Facebook, Google and Twitter set the rules is YOU CAN’T WANT TO BE KING. No, wanting to be a hub doesn’t make it so anymore. The irony of the surest way to become a hub is NOT to want to be one hasn’t escaped me (lol). Perhaps a small story will help explain.

“I am THE expert in this industry,” I had an elderly businessperson tell me a few months ago indignant with self importance. The person may have been correct. In their world of contacts, relationships and people they were LARGE and IN CHARGE.

I live 24/7/365 inside of the largest content network ever created. Where I live the person on the other end of the phone had no address or standing, no Klout score, no search results, no blog posts, no tweets no Facebook and so no legitimacy to make anything other than the most humble plea we should all make regularly if only for its ability to keep our feet planted firmly on the ground, “Please help me.”

The person who was THE expert in an industry I will leave unnamed didn’t look at their situation like I did. This person was so affronted by Google’s insensitivity to their ego they refused help. Checking their Klout score before writing this post I see they still don't have one. How do you explain to an angry person they aren’t whom they think they are, at least not where Google and the web are concerned?

The harder conversation, and the one that lost us the job, is explaining how far behind this person (trying hard not to use gender) was/is. So far behind the closed loop 20-page site purposed wasn’t worth anyone’s time or their money to build. Such a tiny morsel website would be snapped up by the large birds already nesting on this person’s company's keywords (highly competitive keywords).

If it is hard to tell someone they are not who they think they are it is almost impossible to share how their web marketing plan is underpowered by several hundred thousand dollars and short one big, creative, disruptive idea and still win their business. Time and capital is to precious to use for such an adventure. I am sure they found a boutique development/seo group to feed their impossible dream of leaping over millions of dollars and years of competitive advantage/expenditure with a ghost whose online life amounted to an email address.

Luckily I work for brilliant Internet marketers who know the web is dead and so long live whatever the heck this next SoLoMo (Social, Local, Mobile) cum laude party is going to become. The web is dead so long live the curation, social/search, mobile, UGC, Panda, Penguin, Lions, Tigers and Bears coming around the mountain. The day after May Day seems appropriate to write...Vive la Revolution!