The Second Bubble

Just so I'm on record, the next bubble is Internet video. There will be a bunch of people who make a lot of money in the short term, selling online video, selling the technology to serve and track it, and capitalizing on the "Where do we put our money?" problem many advertisers seem to have right now. And then the bubble is going to burst. Again. It will be the second time major advertisers get burned by people in the Internet business. One wonders how long it will take us to recover once that bubble pops, or whether we ever will gain the trust of major marketers again.

We'll keep repeating this rapid expansion/rapid contraction process until either we get it right or major advertisers run out of trust.

I don't claim to have all the answers, but I do know that getting it right involves recognizing that the value of the Internet is not in pushing content, but cultivating conversation. Until the Internet marketing business understands that and stands behind it, we're doomed to repeat history.

Right now it seems like my conversations with reps have taken a big turn toward online video, with everybody promising to get our clients' 30-second spots in front of X number of eyeballs. Then there are the smart colleagues I've come to respect who have managed to land on the wrong side of the net neutrality issue, mainly because they view the Internet as a series of pipes over which "messages" should be "broadcast." Tiered access means those with the means will have bigger online video pipes, right? Ugh...

Yes, people are going to make a shitload of money on online video. No, it won't be sustainable.

HGTV Too Perfect

Since I met Lauren, my media consumption habits have changed a bit. I'm watching a good deal of HGTV, which I wouldn't normally watch. All these home improvement projects they do on shows like "Design on a Dime" and such never seem to run into any snags. You see a bunch of homeowners and designers happily spackling away and never running into a sagging wall where the tops of the screws have popped the spackle off. You never see corners that aren't perfectly square, caulk lines that aren't absolutely perfect or p-traps that don't line up perfectly with sink drains.

The closest thing I ever saw to a snag was when someone drilled a hole for a light fixture with a hole saw and hit a floor joist. And, of course, they had all the tools at the ready to immediately fix it and try something else.

This is what they don't show you. And you end up making trip after trip to Home Depot because you need a few extra drywall screws to fix a bad seam, or because the molding corner pieces you bought apparently don't have a mounting mechanism of any kind.

It always goes nice and smoothly on TV, and it almost never does in real life.

Interesting Story On Domain Kiting

Paul McNamara at Network World writes an interesting piece focusing on what ought to be done about "domain kiting" - the practice of exploiting the five-day grace period offered by domain registrars for registrants of Internet domains. It's an ICANN registration regulation at issue here, which allows for the grace period. Automated systems can gobble domains up and keep them out of circulation without paying for them. To what extent is this happening right now? Bob Parsons, CEO of GoDaddy, says on his blog that 92.3% of domains registered last month were kited. 35 million names were registered in May and only 2.7 million of them were permanent registrations.

Sounds like the domain equivalent of ticket scalping, if you ask me.

Things Have Been Quiet On The Blog Lately

Blogging has been light over the past few days. I've been traveling and pitching a lot of new business, in addition to my usual account work. On top of that, the things that are foremost in my mind are almost all confidential stuff I can't write about (yet). Things will pick up around here, though. I promise.