The Web And I

Like every human being who has ever drawn a breath, I feel myself to be misunderstood.

People think I hate the internet. I don't.

What I hate is bullshit. And among the world's leading bullshit artists for the past decade have been internet advertising hustlers.

Most people don't seem to appreciate the point I often make that although the web may be a hugely successful and influential force in our lives, web advertising has thus far been a big disappointment.

I also seem to have a hard time communicating that there is a difference between social media and social media marketing. That simply because Facebook has 600 zillion members doesn't necessarily make it an effective advertising medium (unless, of course, you believe that a click-through rate of 2 in 10,000 is a great marketing opportunity.)

While I am deeply skeptical of web advertising, I am often blown away by the web itself. Yesterday was a good example.

I sometimes like to check and see who is tweeting about this blog. Yesterday evening I did so and here's what I found. At the time I checked, the 5 most recent tweets about yesterday's post had originated from:

• Jakarta, Indonesia
• Sao Paolo, Brazil
• Barcelona, Spain
• Orange County, California
• Brussels, Belgium

The point here is not to hype this blog. It's about my amazement that some stuff a guy happened to write yesterday could reach people in such an amazing variety of places. Sometimes the web really does amaze me.