One of the biggest propaganda campaigns on the Internet is that advertising is dead, long live optimization. Thousands of ecommerce business owners and Internet Marketers are chanting the mantra like thousands of football fans chanting for their favorite team after a victory. It will take many months, maybe years, for the excitement to wane, the fanfare to fade, and people to start rethinking the wisdom of following a trend without analyzing the validity of the claims.
It is easy to believe the hype. One by one the Giants are falling. Many of the companies falling are Ad reliant companies which are not receiving enough revenue from ads to stay in business. At first glance, you would believe this means that advertising is failing. However, before making a snap decision, take a look at the companies that are surviving, www.suite101.com, www.lifetips.com, www.about.com. There are also the ad reliant social networking groups like www.myspace.com, www.squidoo.com, www.youtube.com etc.
The deathmarch has been analyzed from all angles, by everyone from newspaper editorials to news anchors to SEO pundits and Marketing gurus. No one has the answers. No one has any...