A friend handed me one of Seth’s books about a year back entitled Small is the new Big. With such a unique and not-at-all-trite-whatsoever title, I could only assume that it would be filled with clever, intuitive advice on business. I flipped through the passages, and sampled about 15 before I quickly realized that this man was selling people a book on how to wipe their asses – something I hope we’ve all figured out by now. For this I say more power to him, that takes quite a salesman!
Now, a year later, I can’t get away from his name. Every “consultant” on the planet wants to quote him all day as the Mohammed of the Internet. Yesterday I ran across a quote from his 1998 book, Permission Marketing, “I guarantee you that by the year 2000, Internet ad banners will be gone.” Strangely it was in a collection of “dumb business quotes,” and I’m sure at this point Seth would distance himself from having ever said it – blaming context I’m sure. I however, think this is the smartest thing he may have said.
Not that the banner ad is gone, obviously they’re running strong, but they’re inflated. They’re not working – they’ve never worked. They’re staying afloat on our belief that the Internet is the new business frontier. Well guess what kids, it ain’t so new anymore, and if it hasn’t worked yet … it’s not going to, and to be honest, it’s only going to work less as web-users are spread even more thin.
I have to give it to Seth for going out on a limb and putting a date on a prediction, I’m not going to go that far, but I will give a prediction. When it all shakes out, the Internet will be used for the following things:
- Porno: Instant, private delivery of wonderful, wonderful smut.
- Banking, Billing and Booking: Real-world effects, instantly deliverable.
- Mailorder: stuff you used to order from catalogs, before the Internet.
- Research: Wikipedia, Yellow Pages, Finding a pizza joint etc.
- Dating and Socializing: with the goal of eventually meeting in real-life
- Entertainment: Limited to a few focused sites similar to the way we watch TV now
You may be thinking, “that was easy, you just listed everything;” but that’s not quite true. All of those things have instant, real-world results. You’ll notice one giant, glaring thing missing that is what most people (including our friend Seth) tout as the great, equalizing and revolutionizing factor of the Internet … “the sharing of ideas.”
That sounds so nice and fluffy until you realize that most of us really don’t have all that great of ideas; so hearing about them all the time rather sucks. All of the things on that list will be sought out specifically by a user who already knows what it is they’re looking for; whether it be boy-girl-girl double anal, tickets to NYC for the weekend, or the average life span of the Alaskan Moose. People will seek specific information and then turn their computer off to use it in their real, physical lives.
Anything you can spend an entire day working on and come away having produced exactly bullshit is doomed for abandonment – eventually. In the meantime, get you some gold rush – I know I am.
I was right, I was just early.
I agree, I think it was the smartest thing you’ve ever said.
Although, the statute of limitations is seven years, maybe you should re-state t on a new timeline?
no