Back in February I wrote a post about Group Buying and the wisdom of the herd, essentially making the argument that it was becoming Bubble Town, Bubblesville, Rebubblic of Bubbles. Then just last week, I wrote another post suggesting the way to determine whether a technology has “made it” or not, is to look at whether the world’s leading dictators have adopted it yet – e.g. The Taliban just launched a Twitter account. So what a piece of good fortune that today the spirit of both posts has beautifully merged together in a way I couldn’t have imagined. And it’s all thanks to Glenn Beck.

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When I was a kid modern capitalism hadn’t yet figured out an efficient way to ship glorified tap water thousands of miles from Fiji and then hoodwink the masses into paying for it. Back then our drink of choice had a distinct do-it-yourself flavor. In the early 1980s almost all the kids on my block owned a Soda Stream – a small, kitchen gadget that allowed you to create your own fizzy drinks by pumping gas into bottles filled with tap water before mixing-in a sickly sweet syrup. With just a few pumps of the Soda Stream carbonate button you could effortlessly join the Type 2 Diabetes express train by inhaling endless gallons of “homemade” coke, lemonade or root beer. But now – almost thirty years later -Soda Stream is back, and doing rather well. Which proves that the best new ideas are always…well…the old ones.

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How well do your friends really know you? And by friends I don’t mean the real ones – i.e. the ones you actually spend time with and invest effort in maintaining a relationship – but the couple of hundred or so hangers-on from the past acquaintances on Facebook. Microsoft is betting that not only do these folks know you, but also that they can play a vital role in helping you search the Web. This is all very exciting until you remember that Microsoft also believed that millions of people would want to buy a turd-brown second-rate MP3 player called the Zune in favor of the iPod. But putting that to one side, the idea of social search is finally going semi-mainstream thanks to a new feature recently rolled out by Bing. Continue reading →

Back in September I wrote a post defending SEO from its critics, but pointed out that it had a serious image problem. Almost eight months later I stand by what I wrote because any business that chooses to ignore one of the largest traffic driving channels on the Internet is being foolish. But after giving it some more thought I think the real problem with SEO is this – SEO consultants and vendors need to stop making obvious, simple statements under the guise of cutting edge insight and advice. Because a lot of what I hear come out of the mouths of SEO “experts” is akin to me going to the doctor with a headache and being told to take a Tylenol. Not only is it not rocket science, it verges on insulting my intelligence.  Continue reading →