Biznology

Why Internet marketing is just getting started

2009-07-09T17:06:49Z

Image by Patrick Q via Flickr

Someone said to me today, "It must have been great to be part of Internet marketing from the beginning." Well, it has been. But in truth, we're still at the beginning. Internet marketing is just getting started. The reason for that is that marketing itself is just getting started. Marketing is just a baby. I say this because we act as though marketing is a widely adopted practice. But it's not. If marketing was some technical innovation, we'd say that it is still an emerging technology.

The simple fact is that the average company does almost no marketing. Big companies do marketing. Companies that take advantage of traditional media advertising do marketing.

But most small companies do nothing more than an ad in the Yellow Pages. Most B2B companies do no more than a brochure at the annual trade show. These companies focus on sales, rather than marketing.

They don't take this approach because they are short-sighted or backward. They do so because traditional offline marketing doesn't work for most businesses--it never has. It costs too much and it can't reach the right target audience to be effective.

That's where Internet marketing comes in. It's cheap and it's possible to target any group, no matter how small. For the first time, small companies and B2B companies can afford to do marketing that reaches their prospective customers.

That's why I think marketing is still a baby. Although marketing has been around a long time, it still has a long way to go before most companies focus on marketing the same way they focus on product development or finance or sales. If your company has been ignoring marketing, the Internet is going to force you to face it, sooner or later.

Market researchers need the opposite of a blog

2009-07-08T17:19:40Z

Image by jdlasica via Flickr

OK, I get it it. You probably haven't spent much time considering the question of what the opposite of a blog is. But Genevieve Bell has. She is working on something she calls a "reverse blog," and I wonder if the idea contains an element that we've overlooked in social media and online market research. Market researchers struggling with how to adapt to the challenges of the Web might not want to overlook anything.

Genevieve is an Intel Fellow who is working with her government in South Australia to get the opinion of the people. She was quoted in FAST Company: "I am running a reverse blog," she says, "asking citizens to share their stories of how technology affects their lives."

This reminds me of Dell's IdeaStorm, where customers can contribute product development ideas. This kind of crowdsourcing is good, but maybe there is a bigger idea here.

We all know that market research has gone online. Those ubiquitous polls by SurveyMonkey provide a structured way to get opinions quantified. And we know that focus groups have moved online, where certain customers are asked to share their opinions in more free-form style.

Is Genevieve on to something? I think she might be. Her approach is free form, like a focus group or crowdsourcing, but is not exclusive (you don't have to be invited) or focused (it's not about a specific problem).

Are market researchers looking at this? I think they should be.

How social media listening helps your search marketing

2009-07-07T15:23:29Z

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I frequently talk to clients about how they can use the services of Converseon to listen to the subjects that customers talk about in social media. Lots of companies are seeing the need to listen, but many of them don't understand the hidden benefit for search marketing. If you think that listening to social media is just public relations or market research, you should know how it helps with marketing, too.

One of the things you are forced to do when listening to social media conversations is to describe what those conversations are that are relevant. You can't listen to everything, so you need to listen to just that tiny slice of conversation that's about your company.

To do that, you need to identify the words that people use when they talk about issues you care about. Do they use the same words you do or different ones? Do people who are positive on the issue use different words than those that are negative? No matter what you do, it starts with identifying the words that are in the conversations that you care about.

And what does this sound like? Search keyword research! If you engage in listening with your customers, you'll find one of the best and easiest ways to research the keywords you should be optimizing your organic search campaigns for, and that you should be buying ads for in paid campaigns. If you've never used this tactic, start figuring out how to super-charge your keyword research with social media listening.

The biggest secret of social media is free

2009-07-06T19:28:41Z

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Are you afraid of unleashing your employees in the world of social media? You might not need to be. To find out the no-cost secret that successful social media companies know, check out my latest post on Search Engine Guide, The biggest secret of social media is free.

Do Small Businesses "Get" the Internet?

2009-07-03T19:45:04Z

Image by DavidErickson via Flickr

by Frank Reed

For several years now, I have been talking to anyone and everyone about how the Internet is the great equalizer for small and medium businesses. It can help the little guy play with the big boys. It can help create a David vs. Goliath scenario where the SMB can take the industry giant out with skill and precision. There are so many things that any SMB can do with regard to the Internet that it is mind boggling.

Today? Not so much. Sure., there are some great examples of small businesses that have done exactly as I described. They've put together a plan, stopped wasting money on marketing that doesn't work (like the Yellow Pages, in most cases), and they've breathed new life into their business by being where people are asking how their problem can be solved at the time that they need it the most. The vast majority of SMB's, however, have missed the boat and I'm not convinced that they will ever get on board any ship like the USS Internet.

Why? How can this be? Aren't the SMBs of America the backbone of the country? Don't 95% (or some ridiculously high percentage) of the jobs in the US come from the SMB space? Isn't it the entrepreneurial spirit of the SMB that drives the economic engines? If that's true, then the same group of courageous entrepreneurs that breathe life into the economy are now working just as hard to bleed it dry.

Why do I say this? Here are just a few reasons:

40% of small businesses still don't even have a Web site. That should be enough to win this argument right out of the gate.
SMB's entrepreneurial spirit actually hinders growth, especially when it comes to moving marketing to the Internet. That "gotta do it myself!" spirit is a killer when they think they can figure out how to do Internet marketing by themselves, real cheap, or even for free. Most fail miserably in this area.
SMB's are not risk takers, contrary to popular urban legend and lore. They do safe things and are often left in old practices that limit growth while watching the rest of the business world blow by them. Hey, don't worry though, because most of their business comes from referrals. (Oh brother, if I only had a dime for every time I have heard this wallet-closing mantra.)
SMB's are not terribly positive for the most part. For every bubbly real estate agent that is working a "mind over matter" deal on themselves, there are a hundred hardened SMB owners who have struggled to stay afloat and meet payroll each month. They are worn out and have seen enough. Oh and as the government keeps working against them, this is not going to get better.

So what to do? I have made a decision for myself. Engage only with those folks who do get it. It is a much smaller subset. These are the folks that will come out of this on the other side whole. No more free seminars for the free "lunch and learn" crowd. Serious inquiries only. I have a business to run, too, you know.

No really? More free tools from Google?

2009-07-01T23:54:25Z

Image via CrunchBase

by Josh Greenfield

Don't look now, but Google has just released some more free tools. Every time you look up, something else is dribbling out of Google and it's not that easy to make sense of it all. But we can try.

I know my recent contributions to the Biznology blog have been solely focused on Google and the great tools that Google has brought to market, but I have to say that they never stop impressing me. I'm impressed by the way I can look at their current products and trace their evolution back to their start. Take for instance (800) GOOG-411. On the surface, it's free directory assistance. That would be enough for any other company, but looking back, it seems like they were perfecting voice recognition for the new voice search, available on all Blackberrys and iPhones.

It also looks like Google's acquisitions of both Grand Central and Dodgeball are coming together as well. Grand Central has evolved into Google Voice. Though I personally don't have much use for this, (as I'm less a phone person and more of an e-mail person) the Google Voice interface is clean, intuitive and I'm sure will provide incredible value to sales people and business travelers. I'd bet that this is going to be wrapped in the next evolution of Android and targeted at the iPhone's message center.

Dodgeball has morphed into Latitude, which is available as part of the Google Mobile App, and is another indication that Google is driving hard towards social. What I find most interesting about this project is that it's starting to blend online social networking into the physical world. As in my previous post, I'm giving Google two more years before they completely dominate social.

Finally, I'm not certain why this hasn't made a bigger splash, but it looks like the rumored "GDrive" is here. Maybe it's not exactly what everyone was talking about and hoping for, but as part of any "Google Sites" site, you're given the option to create a File Cabinet. In it, you can house any and all files that you and others upload and share. It makes creating a company or group intranet very easy and accessible.

It seems like you can make a part-time job just following Google around and checking out all the free stuff. Anyone else have any favorites that I haven't mentioned?

Social media is direct marketing

2009-07-01T11:06:40Z

Image via Wikipedia

Lee Odden posed an excellent question in his blog recently, as to whether social media is direct marketing. Brian Clark told Lee that it is, most definitely, direct marketing. Lee said, maybe so, but you cannot use direct marketing pitches in social media. I am here to tell you that they are both right, and if you think about it, there's no real conflict in what they are saying...if you understand a little bit about direct marketing.

When I say "direct marketing" to you, what do you think of? Probably a lot of mail sticking out of your mail box. Maybe a bunch of catalogs for products you don't want. Or that classic three-page letter imploring you to get just one more credit card.

And you'd be right. All those things are part of direct marketing. But they are only a part. Those forms of direct marketing pitches work. They have their place in the marketing world, but they aren't terribly effective online, as Lee pointed out. Not only are they not effective in social media, but they tend not to be effective on your Web site, either. They are typically too wordy for people to slog through on a small Web page.

Ditch 'em.

Another part of direct marketing is about list management--how you decide when to keep mailing to someone who did not buy. How frequently to mail to those that do. How to acquire new prospects for your list. Lee points out that e-mail marketing is a natural complement to social media, and he's right. But unless you're doing e-mail marketing (and most of you aren't), you don't need to understand any of these direct marketing mailing list techniques either.

So what's left?

A whole lot, and all of it is pertinent to Web marketing, including social media. The biggest thing you need to know about direct marketing is that it is feedback-based. Its success is judged based on how many sales it drives. So, that credit card letter? How many signed up? The catalog? How many bought?

With brand marketing—those TV commercials and print ads we've all grown up with—if a nickel rolled in under the door because someone watched your 30-second spot for Coke, no one would ever know. There's no direct correlation, even though Coca-Cola has done enough research to know for sure that there is some positive effect. They just can't directly pin someone watching a particular ad to buying a particular bottle of Coke.

Contrast this with an infomercial. The moment you watch it, you are exhorted to CALL NOW. If you do, then it worked. If you don't, then it didn't.

Now, I understand that life is more complicated than that. Sure, you might have watched several different infomercials before you decided to call. You might even have seen ads or a direct mail piece first. That's why direct marketers use matchback systems, where they use formulas to allocate credit among the various "touches" that a customer had before they bought. If you're a sophisticated direct marketer, such as L.L. Bean, you can measure the impact of every touch for each customer as you allocate your marketing budget going forward.

So what does all this have to do with social media? Everything. Social media is a customer "touch," too. It's just a touch much earlier in the process, like a publicity story. You'd expect that people exposed to your social media messages are more inclined to buy from you than others. You'd like to be able to track the persuasive power of your social media—not that it directly tells people to buy from you, but it eventually leads them to buy from you.

Look at a personal example. I send out this newsletter every month. I post on my blog almost every business day. I update Twitter numerous times most days. What am I saying in all that information? Hire me to speak at your event? Buy my books? Bring me in as a consultant?

No.

Instead, I am just providing information that might help a potential customer of mine. I'm showing them what I know so that they might someday get the idea that they could use me. I'm using social media in the very early part of the buying cycle and trusting that enough people will remember to hire me when they need me.

Thankfully, it is working. But I am measuring it a lot more like Coca-Cola than like L.L. Bean. People tell me that they read my blog post and bought my book and then got in touch with me. Or they started following me in Twitter and then came to see me speak and then hired me.

I want more. I want to apply direct marketing metrics to social media. I want to know what percentage of people who find my blog eventually subscribe to it. And how many of them eventually hire me for something. Now, on my shoestring marketing budget (when I can afford shoestrings), I can't invest the money it would take for me to measure all this stuff, so I take it on faith.

But bigger companies don't need to do that. Lots of smart people are working on applying direct marketing measurement principles to social media. It's hard to go a few days without reading something about social media return on investment. So, expect it to be possible soon. The question is, will you be thinking this way? Will you be ready?

Search Engine Conflicts We Don't Accept

2009-06-30T13:17:16Z

Image via CrunchBase

Microsoft is selling Razorfish, the search consultancy it acquired as part of the bigger aQuantive acquisition. Microsoft has been criticized for owning a search consultancy that manages clients' paid search spending on search engines, including Microsoft's own search engine, Bing. Google was similarly pilloried for being in the same position with Performics when it acquired DoubleClick. For more, check out my latest post on Internet Evolution, "Search Engine Conflicts We Don't Accept."

Searching for profits more than answers

2009-06-29T15:02:14Z

Image by kbock70 via Flickr

The refreshing thing about search marketing is the way that the little guy was on equal footing with the big guy. Yes, I said "was" on equal footing. I am noticing a disturbing trend in search results, from Bing and others, that leads to big companies having a distinct advantage in search, just as they do in most other forms of marketing. To see what I mean, check out my latest blog post for Search Engine Guide, "Searching for profits more than answers."

Twitter's Free to All Model is Wrong

2009-06-26T00:08:55Z

Image by DBarefoot via Flickr

by Frank Reed

I am going to write something that is likely to be unpopular. Today I experienced a "perfect storm" of sorts regarding the Internet and the idea of free is good. This apparent entitlement mentality that is pervasive among Internet users that everything should free is going to potentially ruin a lot of good opportunities. Of course, all of this is in my opinion so you can take it for what it's worth. At least reading it is free, right?

This week I have encountered SMB (small and medium business) people who love the idea of Internet marketing but they don't think that they should have to pay for it. I have read that free services suck because you can't get service when something breaks or fails. I have been doing free seminars for some folks for over a year but have closed nearly zero business from it (this last one may be because I just didn't do the right things to make them a customer which I can accept).

So free is in but for how long? Two of the most prolific Internet properties that are currently getting a serious amount of attention from business are Twitter and Facebook. They are both free to use. I am beginning to think that Facebook has a better mousetrap due to a wider breadth of services it ties together, but that's for another post. One thing that Twitter has is a ton of hype. This hype appears to outpace reality on a consistent basis. I think any stumbling blocks that Twitter is encountering is due to one facet of the service: it's free.

So should Twitter charge for the service? Here's a few things to mull over.

If Twitter were getting more people who actually used the service rather than signing up and then not using it within a month it would have more value. It may have a lot less users but it would be the people who actually get it. So how to you separate the wheat from the chaff? Make the service a paid one. Not much. Let's just say $24.99 per year. Just over two bucks a month. I would spend that in a heartbeat for Twitter. Why? Because I see the value and I would think that 2 bucks a month is a steal. Some quick math for you. If 50% of the 18 or so million Twitter users decided they would pay for the service at $24.99 per year you now have revenue of just under, gulp, $225 million. With overhead being as small as it is for Twitter you have plenty of profit, plenty of cash for R&D and even more for infrastructure. Oh and you also get 9 million users with skin in the game so they now become much more valuable to advertisers.
If Twitter had revenue, it could quit wasting time with everyone speculating how they were going to make money to survive and then just develop very cool ways to apply the service to businesses for their benefit.
If Twitter charged for use and could provide customer service. Nothing else needs to be said there.
Back to the R&D thought. If Twitter was making money it could work 24 / 7 to improve its search capabilities. Many believe search is the true potential value of Twitter anyway. Think of the paid search model around highly targeted and engaged Twitter users based on keyword. The cash registers would ring a lot.
Twitter as a paid service would eliminate a lot of the noise. There would be less mundane reporting because users would have skin in the game.

I say all this because, while it's not as sexy as Twitter, LinkedIn is looking to be profitable for its second year in a row. That's right. Profit. No matter how many characters you get to make that point it's something that Twitter may never realize. Sure that's a strong statement but why not? Twitter is burned into everyone's brain as a free service and I suspect it may be too late for them to get back to where they need to be.

Look, I could be wrong here but one thing I am sure of. If anything is put out as free you will get what you pay for. To expect more and, even worse, to think that you shouldn't have to ever pay for any Internet services is ridiculous. Would you just give away your product or service? No, of course not. So why do you think that Twitter should?

What if your boss is fraidy-scared of Internet marketing?

2009-06-25T20:27:40Z

Image via Wikipedia

When I was a kid on Long Island (pronounced "Lon GUY-land"), I was one of those boys that was fraidy-scared a lot. Afraid of the bigger kids. Afraid of everyone realizing how unathletic I was. (OK, OK, of how unathletic I am.) So, I can sense fear when I see it, and I am seeing a lot of fraidy-scared marketers lately. They knew how to do their jobs in the old days but they don't know what this Internet thing is all about. If you're reading this post, you're unlikely to be one of those fraidy-scared folks, but you might work with or (horrors) for someone filled with fear. What do you do?

The boss might be afraid of spending money on a Web site. Or scared of handing over the company credit card for paid search. Or petrifiied of the risk of letting employees blog or tweet. How do you work with someone like that? You know what to do, but they are stopping you.

It might sound cynical, but sometimes the best thing to do is to fight fear with fear. When you are dealing with someone who is fear-based, you might need to scare them more about what happens if they ignore your advice. If our competitors all have Web sites and we don't. If our customers are searching for us and we are not there. If our clients want to get to know us and we are hiding. If we are not out there on the Web where our customers are (at least some of them), they won't come find us. They'll just work with someone else who is out there with them.

If your boss is fraidy-scared, you might need to scare him more. And then reduce the worry about what you are advising so it seems less scary than sitting still. Explain how we can do a quick Web site for very little money. Discuss how we can set limits on search spending to stay within the budget. Promise him that we'll train a few employees in social media so that they won't screw it up. And only after these experiments start to pay off will we really commit to them.

It's pointless to tell people who are afraid that there's nothing to worry about. Instead, persuade them by showing them standing still isn't as safe as they assume.

What's Listening 2.0? Can you stand to hear it?

2009-06-24T17:48:48Z

Image by Gauravonomics via Flickr

I was fortunate to be invited to do a Webinar today on Listening 2.0, along with Mark Kovscek of VivaKi and Pauline Ores of IBM, on what's going on with all these conversation monitoring/mining/listening services that are suddenly popping up. As Chief Strategist for Converseon, I am kind of biased. I mean, we have the really good one, you see. But it was helpful to be part of a panel where we could talk about what kind of qualities make a good one and we got lots of great questions.

My piece of the talk focused on two key components of the new improved listening:

Insights. The early listening companies focused on automation of keyword snippets. They struggled to correctly label sarcasm as negative and they couldn't analyze a blog post with two negative comments and one positive, calling the whole thing neutral or mixed, when the client needs to see each individual insight, not some aggregated glob. With improved technology, but more important, with human analysts, Listening 2.0 companies can provide real customer insight rather than streams of keyword snippets.
Actions. But it's not just about understanding what customers say, it's about doing something about it. Companies need enterprise listening where the same service can be used across organizational boundaries, so that everyone hears the same things and, more importantly, can act on them using workflow tools common in other business processes.

Thanks to those of you who tuned in. For the rest, I've posted the slides of all three presenters for WOMMA's Listening 2.0 Webinar. I'd love to hear about what you are expecting out of your listening company.

Just what constitutes a spam blog comment?

2009-06-23T19:53:12Z

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

make the decision several times every day, just like most blog owners. A comment comes in to one of our posts. I scan it and make a snap decision: is it spam or is it a legitimate comment for me to publish? But lately, I've been second-guessing my decisions, wondering whether I am canning spam or stifling real readers from providing feedback. Or maybe I am letting lots of spam through that lowers the conversation. If you've ever struggled with the spam or no spam decision on your blog comments, read my latest post on Search Engine Guide, "Just what constitutes a spam blog comment?"

A Walk Around the Digital Marketing Block

2009-06-22T14:56:18Z

Image via Wikipedia

by Janine Y. Swenson

I was early to the event, so I chose to walk around my old neighborhood, south of Washington Square Park in New York City. I feared the neighborhood when I first moved in almost 29 years ago, viewed it as unmanageable, but it now seemed open, welcoming, and easy to navigate. How unfortunate that what I know now, I didn't know then. I could have taken advantage of so many things. I liken that experience to how many marketing managers of small, medium, and even large businesses view the Internet today. What they see as frightening, unfamiliar, and unmanageable could be a welcoming, easily-navigated direct link to their existing and new customers.

If those business leaders had attended the event that I was headed to, it could have helped them to see what they're missing. As I walked the neighborhood, I was on my way to half-day conference this past Friday by the Internet Strategy Forum of NYC. (ISF is a global peer networking group for Internet strategy managers.)

Fearful marketers needed to attend the ISF's panel discussion with digital marketing industry leaders on "Making the Right Moves for Digital Growth in Turbulent Times" (follow some of the Twitter tweets tagged #ISFJune19), I attended through the courtesy of Mike Moran and the ISF. (Mike tweeted that the ISF would give free admission to the first to tweet him back, and I was the first.) I have to say, fellow "tweeple," I was glad I was there and if you weren't, you really missed out on a great event.

Moderator Lee Huang, the Director of Digital Strategy at NBC Universal, kept the group of panelists engaged with the audience through thought-provoking questions and personal examples. The panel included Patrick Adams, SVP and CMO for Victoria's Secret Direct, Kip Morgan, CMO of eMusic, Chris Johnson, VP of Content & Business Development at Hearst Digital, and Michael Levin, Director of Product Development with NBC Universal. They speculated on candidates for the digital focus in this current economy, both short- and long-term, how to really understand the customer (what they want and how they want it), how to prioritize and monetize new ideas, and how to handle the competitive environment. They also openly discussed how they are handling emerging platforms such as mobile, gaming, and immersive sites.

If you're a marketer and view the Internet as uncharted territory, and your strategic plan is not quite ready for prime-time digital, then rethink that plan. If you wait until the Web becomes commonplace for every business, you'll waste the opportunity to be unique, an early adopter, and a trend setter.

For new and innovative digital ideas, take the crawl-walk-run approach, endorsed by Kip Morgan. Or jump right in and develop something unique and fun, like "Quidgits," a combination of a quiz and widget, which Mike Levin shared that NBC Universal has developed to push users to their learning sites. Patrick Adams, who manages every Victoria Direct marketing function under one roof, says this makes it easier to take on seasonal marketing planning, integrating the traditional with digital, email, stores, music, and Web cohesively and improves ease of execution. I especially liked what Chris Johnson shared, to shift from a brand-focused to a trust-focused strategy.

Regarding that trust, your biggest competitors might not be the known organizations with similar or approaching market share, but young, innovative, and fast-moving companies under your radar, establishing digital trust with your existing customer base. For every hundred of these, one might take off and take off big, because of their agility on the Web. Beating them now at the game will be less expensive than an acquisition later.

Walk around your own neighborhood, as Patrick Adams said, and shop your competitor. With your finger on the digital pulse of your industry, coupled with strong knowledge of your market, you can gain traction with innovative digital ideas appropriate to your marketing plan. Don't wait 29 years for the landscape to change so much that it becomes a different place, lamenting that you didn't take advantage early on of everything offered to you.

People Never Get Old on the Internet

2009-06-18T23:06:31Z

Image by Joe Shlabotnik via Flickr

by Frank Reed

I have been working in the Internet industry in some form or another for a total of seven years now. I have been in sales on the hosting side, sold commercial Internet connectivity, sold services from the VAR side, partnered in an Internet marketing agency and now I consult and write. I've seen a lot in the industry from the Fortune 50 clients to the local optician's office. I have a lot of "been there, done that" in me as it relates to the Internet.

I have noticed that there is one very old-fashioned common denominator that runs across all of those experiences. I use this "theme" to define whether the online-initiated experience was good or not. It's not about technology. It's not about process. It's not about delivery. It's about people. While the Internet is connection of networks, it's more
importantly a Web of people. Real people.

I had a great experience today. I helped connect a person with a need to a service that met the need, and it resulted in a happy client. Happy enough, in fact, that they wanted to make things easy by paying for their year's service in advance. Now that kind of thinking is wonderful to hear in this day and age. As a result, I was faced with a choice at this time. I could offer them the special year discount or simply just ignore it because they were going to buy anyway. My sales instincts told me to not say anything but the stronger part of me won out because it was the right thing to do. They were very happy and I think the money they saved was given back to me in goodwill for the future. I then spoke with their accounts payable person, who was having trouble making the payment, and she was just a genuinely nice person.

"What's the point?" you ask. While the only reason we were speaking was due to the Internet, the experience was very cool because of the people. The Internet was the means to an end. The end being interaction with good people for the right reasons.

That's what never goes out of style. I would even offer that as we become more sophisticated on the Internet technologically, that the people part of the equation is going to become more, rather than less, important. In the hard goods manufacturing sector, technology replaces people while with the Internet it forces people to the forefront to perform. The Internet business is a service business. The human side of the Internet helps to humanize a company that has been reached in an inhuman way. It takes the edge off the anonymity. It serves to make someone feel good about doing business with you. Technology can't do that. Technology is just a means to an end. A human end.

Never before in the history of commerce has there been a greater chance to differentiate yourself from the competition through the basic human tenets of human decency, respect, and desire to be of service. What the technology removes, or possibly dehumanizes at times, needs to be replaced by people in order to be most effective. Companies that get this, like Comcast, are going to crush their competition. I feel supremely confident of that. Even Google is learning that slowly but surely. There are now people who can be reached to actually talk to at Google. Of course, that is not perfect and never will be, but neither are people.

So what's the takeaway? Never stop concentrating on the human side of your business, no matter how techy or geeky your company is. If you are too heavily weighted on the geek side of the equation you will be viewed as less accessible. Less accessibility in today's world means less interaction, which may lead to less business. We can automate the heck out of everything, but if there isn't a person to speak to about a problem or a success, the long-term viability of the customer is diminished very quickly. So, no matter how cool your Internet business is, you better not think you are too cool for people. You might still make a living but it won't make a life.