People complain that Blogging has given all kinds of individuals access to "push button publishing", everybody has been given a voice irrespective of how talented or effective they are.

I disagree. I think BusinessWeek has done more damage by appointing Assistant Managing Editors like these!

It isn't Bruce Nussbaum's fault really, he doesn't intend to be so. He's just a reporter from a generation ago who's on the internet surrounded by more qualified and more effective communicators. The world's changed quite a bit and the barriers-to-entry have disappeared [ as far as journalism is concerned ]. Bruce's long bio' isn't going to be enough anymore. Nor is BusinessWeek's reputation.

Or maybe Bruce's blog is more about Innovation than Design. In which case he's still way out of his league.

Lessons:

1. Google may be bringing people to your 17th page directly. So your fancy opening flash animation [ or cool domain name / layout ] may not mean anything anymore.

2. Blogging is open to [ almost ] anybody. I don't need contacts in Publishing, just solid content. So your carefully built bio may not mean anything anymore.

3. Brilliant Advertising / Branding never really managed to sell bad products consistently, but today, more than ever before, you need a product that does the talking if you want it to sell. More communication = More audible voices = More Word-of-Mouth.

Labels: Marketing Evolution, Marketing Mistakes