How Today’s Internet isn’t Killing our Culture

The main theme of Andrew Keen’s book, The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing our Culture, can be summed up in a few sentences. Unfortunately for Keen, these were uttered 46 years ago, and by someone else talking about an earlier media “threat” to our way of life.

“When television is good, nothing—not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers—nothing is better,” said FCC chairman Newton Minow in a now-famous 1961 speech. “But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there…until the station signs off. I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland.”

Keen’s book is a polemic that targets “today’s internet,” or Web 2.0., rather than television. His most pungent bile is reserved for user-generated social media, such as blogs, wikis and video-sharing sites. According to Keen, millions of preening, narcissistic, know-nothing “amateurs” are “perpetuating the cycle of misinformation and ignorance.”

Wikiality? 
Furthermore, Keen contends, Web 2.0 is threatening our legacy of trusted print and media professionalism, is damaging intellectual property rights, destroying musicians’ and journalists’ and writers’ livelihoods, eroding our faith in advertising (?!) and, predictably, stealing the innocence of our children.

Indeed. Wikiality is taking over the world, and the sky, it’s, you know, falling.

Today’s internet is certainly changing our culture. But killing it? Hardly. In fact, I’d argue that the Gutenberg press, which ushered in a new era of print media in the 15th century, was far more disruptive. Then, more efficient printing led to a more rapid dissemination of information that in turn spawned revolutions (social, religious, scientific) that we’re still feeling the effects of half a millennium later.

It’s possible that this little user-generated content revolution of ours will be as disruptive, but somehow I doubt it.

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Cat Seda’s new book offers a blueprint for Web marketing success

We’ve known Catherine “Cat” Seda for some time. A local gal who’s made good here in the San Fernando Valley, Cat has been an ocassional adviser to Yahoo! She’s also a veteran search marketer, author, columnist for Entrepreneur magazine, one-time skeleton racer and self professed “speed freak” whose ready smile can be seen just about anywhere search marketers, web publishers and other Internet entrepreneurs gather.

In her first book, Search Engine Advertising: Buying Your Way to the Top to Increase Sales (New Rider, 2004; $22.99), Cat detailed the ins and outs of paid search advertising, a work that, three years later, still stands the test of Internet time. In her new book, How to Win Sales and Influence Spiders: Boosting your Business & Buzz on the Web, Cat takes on the whole gamut of Web marketing and PR, from optimizing your pages for organic search to using social media to re-invent yourself as a guru in whatever field you choose to delve.

Pithily written and with copious, real-world examples (not anonymous case studies) How to Win Sales and Influence Spiders is a fast-paced yet comprehensive jaunt into the art of business promotion on the Web. Tightly organized and accessible, the book offers actionable information on every one of the book’s 240 pages.

I found Chapter 4, “Networking in Social Media” most intriguing, perhaps because it’s so new a phenomenon, but also because of the way Seda uses it to strengthen her main thesis. Namely, that every expression you make online or off should be a marketing expression that promotes your business or brand. Even something as simple an online profile created for a social media site like del.icio.us or MySpace can and should be an integral part of your overall marketing effort, and Seda shows how to create an effective one: Choosing a marketable URL, customizing your profile page design, creating compelling content, setting a friendly tone and, not least, leaving a “link trail” and more.

True, some experienced search marketers and publishers may find some of the basics old hat. But these offer the necessary grounding and a springboard for the gems that come later. If you think SEO and paid search are the be-all and end-all strategies of getting noticed on the Web, you need to be set straight. And this is the book to do it.

—Michael Mattis, Blog Editor