Here We Go

Link. And the telecoms even positioned it just like we thought they would - premiums for priority access.

That doesn't bode well for folks who would use run of the mill non-premium access, would it? Wouldn't you think that natural market forces would keep non-premium access at pretty much the same speed while speed and bandwidth would increase on the premium side? How long before the non-premium access completely drops out of the picture?

A nearly perfect analogy would be a comparison between broadcast television and cable television. What sorts of innovations have we seen on the broadcast side in the past 25 years? And how many on the cable side, now that consumers are paying to have the signal piped directly into the home? How many people could put up with rabbit ears today?

It disgusts me that people can't see this bullshit coming a mile away.

Tomorrow's Spin

Tomorrow's Online Spin will be all about how much work is involved in tapping into the long tail. It's also about how ad agencies are still infatuated with mass marketing and why they don't want to dive into the trenches and simply Do The Work.

Blog Networks - Not Necessarily an Advertising Play

We've had significant contact with most of the blog advertising networks out there, talking about ad deals with many of them, sponsorships with some and other potential tie-ins with one or two. What bugs me is that when reps pitch me with an ad deal, they're not offering me anything unique that I couldn't get anywhere else. Blog networks aren't big enough to be reach plays, aren't yet polished enough to be premium content plays, and they don't have a common thread that can unify each one of the blogs in the network. (Unless you count the whole "bloggers as opinion leaders" thing, which I don't think holds water. You're advertising to more blog readers than bloggers when you purchase ads on blog networks.)

Truth be told, when a rep comes in with an ad deal we're almost immediately talking about price. A network ad buy is a commodity. Why pay a blog network $5 per thousand when I can get Run of Network inventory elsewhere for $0.50 per thousand?

What blog networks need to focus on is that which no other network can give an ad agency or advertiser - an entry point into the conversation. I'd love to see a blog network come into the office and tell me that they can help us with the qualitative aspect of communications - how to connect meaningfully with the audience of the various blogs they represent without wallpapering the entire damned landscape with 160x600 skyscraper ads.

I'm not looking to pay for non-disclosed coverage or alter a content agenda. That wouldn't make sense. I'd be willing to speak to some relevant bloggers about commenting on something that makes contextual sense (perhaps on another blog), and prompting their audience to chime in. I'd be open to a blogger, or the audience of a particular blog, offering some suggestions to someone at a client company as to how to improve their marketing or tell them what's wrong with their current approach.

But it can't be just another 160x600 wallpapering. I can do that anywhere and I can do it cheaper outside the blog networks. That road leads to blog networks not being able to support themselves because they're giving their audience away while continuing to broadcast "buy my stuff" messages AT them. But if blog networks take on a more consultative approach, helping agencies and advertisers facilitate the conversation between blog audiences and marketers, wouldn't everybody be much happier?

Yes, blog ads do get better response rates than typical banner buys. But that isn't sustainable. It's not very long before people tune out because they're being broadcast TO as opposed to conversed WITH. Can we learn from the past and do this right from day one as opposed to trashing the reputations of the blog networks and having to rebuild them? We know we have to tap into what makes blogs special, and many blog networks aren't doing that.

You Get These Phone Calls Too, Right?

I can't stand cold calls from executive recruiters. I get at least five a week these days. Most of them tell me they're looking for someone to fill a position and hope I can help them by providing some names of people I think might be interested. (Really, they're hoping I'll hear the job description and want to jump on the opportunity myself.) You wouldn't believe the nerve of some of these recruiters when I politely decline to spend my time helping them find their candidate. Many of them get insistent. Meanwhile, I can't remember the last time one of them gave me a finder's fee for doing their job for them. Folks like me give them candidates who end up taking their positions and earning them money.

Meanwhile, I've heard the business pitches of many of these recruiters from the other end. They claim to know my business and have plenty of contacts. Meanwhile, many of them are just cold-calling people and asking for referrals. Not only are they getting paid for other people's information, but they're getting rewarded for playing up their contacts when they don't have them to begin with.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Stop being so uptight and just give them a few names. Maybe someone you know will get a nice job as a result.

Nah, I cringe to think I'm helping to build someone else's business for no compensation. These guys should be offering a finder's fee in exchange for a viable candidate who takes the job, not making money from my Rolodex.