Yes.

You put it perfectly, Steve. I do think, though, that RB's "The Internet is all about me" rant, which he now renounces, was getting at something different. The canvas the Net gives us let's us go nuts about ourselves and our viewpoints. I can sing myself electric to the entire bloody world. That's exhilirating, although also delusional and egotistical. It changes the old equation where a handful of us were broadcasters and the rest of us were audience members. It's no accident that the Age of Conformity came into existence as TV sets went into everyone's home. It's no accident that as Web access goes into everyone's home we're entering the Age of Assholes. And I mean that in the very best sense :)

I think Chris and David are both right. The Internet is all about me. It's my information, entertainment, and communication servant. It's my canvas, my printing press, and my landscape. I control where I go, what I read/write/think, and how long I pay attention. And this is what drives traditional marketing folks nuts. Since the beginning of time you have had two sides in conflict with one another: Sellers trying to communicate to buyers. Buyers trying to communicate to sellers.

The marketing world is based on the notion of sellers trying to communicate to buyers. How do we know that the 17,000 year old cave paintings at Lascaux, France weren't really ads for the latest hunting tools? The goal is to convince buyers that they need (or better yet cannot live without) what you're selling. In some cases the need is real (food, water, shelter) and in others the need is artificial (furry toilet seat covers, Belgian waffle makers, Naive bottled water). The perferred method of communication is one-way messages.

But buyers have always had a harder time trying to communicate to sellers. No thanks to sellers (non-human corporations). Their stuff is real. But they are not. Anyone who's ever dealt with customer service knows it's an oxymoron. Technology has been the buyer's best friend when it comes to communicating to sellers...or better yet other buyers. Guttenberg's little invention gave fire to the masses, and it didn't take long for the conflagration to begin. Next stop, Consumer Reports. The Internet has done the same kind of thing.

Marketers spent centuries creating three enormous one-way streets for communication: Print, Radio, and Television. It was mass marketing to support mass industry. Then along came the Internet, and it blew the lid off everything. Joe/Jayne Smith didn't have their own magazine or radio program or television show...but they had the Internet...and they used it to go the "wrong way" down the one-way street. Email, Usenet, chat rooms, message boards, and Web sites gave local yocals global voices. Next stop, Google Groups.

And now for my point (albeit long winded). Ask anyone in marketing or advertising what the most valuable form of communication is and most will tell you word-of-mouth. It's the Holy Grail of the ad world. Get it and your widgets will live forever. But their one-way messages don't create word-of-mouth awareness. Only engaged people do. And when you connect a few million people then some interesting things are bound to happen. The Internet is one giant word-of-mouth cocktail party, but advertisers aren't invited. And because the Internet is all about me (my connections, my ideas, my interests) then I have the power of word-of-mouth. Watch out.

Kidding, were you? I still think you were right, no matter how much you want to weasel out of it.

The Sunday Times (London) has published a pretty fine review of Gonzo Marketing, which you can see (I think) here. My answer to the final paragraph is: "yeah, it's just you." In fact, I sent that along with a thank-you note to the reviewer, Frank Fitzgibbon (whom I don't know, btw). The less tongue-in-cheek answer is that I wasn't being cynical at all. I hope I was being some reasonably level-headed form of "realistic." At any rate, this was nice to see in such an august publication. Haven't noted it anywhere else yet, so remember: you read it here first.

You just never can tell (at least I can't) when you're gonna catch Dr. Weimeraner in a philosophic frame of mind. One big clue is when he starts lettering and numbering his lemmas. So David? If you're there, put your ear up to the screen, buddy. I WAS KIDDING!!! No, I don't really believe the Internet is all about me. Or the world for that matter. (However much I may wish it were.)

As to being for others, I have come around to thinking that if I take care of myself (the precise details of how to accomplish which, I admit, continue to elude me), the others will get along just fine. Better, probably, than if I were to dedicate my life to what would have to be -- if you think about, wouldn't it? -- my idea of what would be best for them. Having said that, I want each and every one of you to know that I do love humanity. Deeply. So much that it hurts. In fact, it hurts so much that I say every morning when I awake: fuck em. let God sort em out!

For those who haven't read it, David Weinberger has a solid review of gonzo over at JOHO. David says, "Locke doesn't think of gonzo marketing as a type of guerrilla marketing that mixes the decorum of Mardi Gras and the social graces of a vomitous hangover. Rather, he and Thompson agree that 'gonzo' actually means 'subjective and engaged.'" Engaged, here, aren't we? Thanks David.

I think it was best said as "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?

The question that can be asked is how do we accomplish being for ourselves and being for others. And how do we reconcile the effects that being for ourselves has upon our being for others.

I CELEBRATE myself;
And what I assume you shall assume;
For every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my Soul;
I lean and loafe at my ease, observing a spear of summer grass.

~ wanker talkin' about hisself

Bull shit. (Hell, RB gave up the rights to his meme when he published his book.) If the only topic voice can express is me, then we're living in a really boring universe.

Gonzo marketing requires expressing your passion about things. We are not only passionate about ourselves, unless you mean that in some lame-ass way that fudges the math. Here's the math: A cares about B and talks about B in an honest voice. To say that this always means that A cares about A is true, but to say that A always only cares about A is false. Fudging it would mean we couldn't tell the difference between: (1) Benetton putting out a book letting condemned prisoners have their say because Benetton (that is, the marketing people at Benetton) thinks capital punishment is an abomination and (2) J. Crew putting out a brochure about how comfy-yet-rugged their doeskin fucking mukluks are.

I really like what RB says about the Net being all about me. There's a ton of truth in that. Every time we speak we do so with the arrogance that what we're saying is worth hearing. Me me me. Absolutely. But, that doesn't mean that we are our only topic; most of us - even RB - spend much more time talking about how the world looks from our point of view. That we're always gazing from our point of view is inevitable; that we're always gazing at ourselves is not.

And then there's also this little thing we call listening that the focus on the me-ness of voice misses.

So, bite me.

As you could maybe tell from that last, I'm in a crappy mood. It's mostly because I've been procrastinating for months, literally, on revising this goddam article I originally wrote for Harvard Business Review. They rejected it -- and after reading it again over the "holidays" (hah!), I can see why. What a piece of shit! The reason I keep promising myself to do this is that I've also promised a far shorter version (2000 words) to Perseus, who want to include it in a monster business encyclopedia they're bringing out next year with Bloomsbury (the UK publisher of the Harry Potter books).

So every day for the last couple weeks now I've waked up thinking TODAY I'm gonna fix it. Mother of God! What is wrong with my brain? Why can't I write a single fucking paragraph? Oh well...

I did get pretty excited a couple days ago, enough to put together these two tables, which show at a glance what I'm arguing for. I've renamed the thing "The Case for Business Criticism."

Table 1. Google Search Results





         Query                   Hits

      

      "literary criticism"    223,000

      "art criticism"          29,500

      "media criticism"        22,600

      "social criticism"       19,600

      "cultural criticism"     16,900

      "music criticism"         5,040

      "science criticism"         551

      "business criticism"        170





Table 2. Google.com Search Results

      

         Query                   Hits

      

      "music critic"           45,900

      "art critic"             43,800

      "literary critic"        24,600

      "social critic"          13,300

      "media critic"            9,410

      "cultural critic"         7,340

      "science critic"            178

      "business critic"            85

I included the "science crit" entries as an afterthought -- and it was a lucky one, as through those searches I discovered an article called Why Not Science Critics? by Don Ihde, who is a big gun in the philosophy of science (sorta like being the best basket weaver on Wall Street). Anyway, the parallels in our arguments were pretty arresting, and I got all turned on for a minute. But it wore off and now I'm cranky again because I really do have to finish this today. This self promotion shit is really hard work if you think about it. Maybe I should switch to self-effacing humility. Maybe that'd be easier. You think?

Just to clear up this business about self promotion: yes, self promotion is absolutely crucial. It's the most important aspect of gonzoism (there, I've nominalized it, so feel free to crank out the bumper stickers and start The Movement.)

You see, Mike, the Internet is really all about me. And I mean that in a very personal way. It's about me, Chris Locke. Me, RageBoy. The whole world wants to know what I'm thinking. Surely, you do, right? And I figure it's my responsibility to be selfish and irresponsible as much as I can, as often as I can. Also, to be humorless and moralistic and create rules around all that and question the motives of others who aren't Just Like Me so they can become More Like Me.

F-u-u-u-u-u-u-ck! What's it all about, Mr. Natural? Huh?

Sorry. But I'm not sorry. This passive-aggressive nagging gives me a headache. It gives me, as Rabelais once said, the Bloody Flux of Lombardy. So bite me.

For a better time, go read what Jeneane is doing over here.

Mike:
Just to add a little something to Jeneane's answer - One of the things that hooked me about Gonzo was the vivid contrast with traditional marketing techniques, like broadcast advertisements (which, on the net, we call SPAM).

These are made by people who don't use the product, usually don't know that much about it, certainly won't tell you about any flaws it may have or give an honest appraisal of its relative worth (vis a vis any competition for example), and are simply paid to say nice things about it loudly.

Gonzo is all about the voice of experience. Check out the examples that Chris uses for his suggestions of patronage; you'll see that while he encourages Ford employees to talk about how a Ford truck might relate to their gardening hobby, there is no suggestion that they ought to toe any particular party line.

On the contrary, he clearly and repeatedly stresses that any such editorialising would render the exercise almost completely futile. The voice must be engaged, and therefore it must be genuine, it must be human, and it must be free of imposed agendas.

Only then can listening to it be of maximum value, only then can it be Gonzo.

Objectivity is not the objective (pun intended, sorry!). In fact it may be entirely irrelevant, except in the sense that in Gonzo it is not pretended to, as it may be in other marketing techniques.

I would say that it (objectivity) is surely possible, I suppose that many an art critic would consider themselves objective, even though fully engaged in the Gonzo sense.


"Art critics create nothing, and thereby feel themselves qualified to judge the works of creative people. There is logic in this: they hate all creative people equally." --Robert Heinlein

Mike--no offense taken. Did anyone ever tell you that you ask great questions? I think that it is indeed a gonzo objective to do away with the notion that writing--or better yet voice--must or should be unbiased. The stronger the voice, the stronger the notion of self wrapped inside of it. And this is not a bad thing. Especially on the Net, this is the way it has to be. Because the very medium--browser-based access through brightly-lit screens--sticks voice right in your face. How powerful! And, how much more meaningful and joyous than the vapid reporting of rat-tat-tat events we've been spoonfed and have come to accept as journalism. No?

To All
The small-post suggestion was not directed towards anyone and I apologize if anybody was offended or felt censored. I made the suggestions in an attempt to revitalize this blog.

To David and All
Whenever I read or hear anything, I assume it is colored by the person's point of view. Even when it is supposedly objective journalism. Is it a gonzo objective to make that bias more explicit or to dispense with any attempts at being objective?

I agree with David (and am so glad to see him here!) Gonzo is not about the author/writer/speaker/thinker, but *from* that person. In other words, I can speak of someone else or even as someone else, but it's gonzo if it is engaged -- if the author is involved in the writing of the text. That is where voice emerges. This doesn't mean the writer must necessarily be physically involved or present, but it does mean that the author has a vested interest (and as David says, that he 'exposes' something). Self-promotion is a byproduct, not so much a forethought. And it is completely optional for the audience to support or underwrite that voice. The voice remains regardless. My two cents.

Thanks Mike for zinging some life back into RGE. David, please come back often, and bring some folks with you!

Hernani and others, don't censor yourselves. Not here. Write and engage. If we fail to be engaged (and to engage), then the blog will become quiet. But if our posts incite, no matter their length, then we'll continue to thrive here. That's fine with me. The ebb and flow is essential in life, both online and offline.

Voice has to come from an engaged person to be worth listening to, but that doesn't mean that what the voice says has to be about the person. Every great writer without exception has had a voice, but most of them use that voice to show us how the world looks to them. Some few focus on themselves as their subject. And the great exemplar of gonzo writing - Hunter S. Thompson - used himself as a subject far more than traditional journalists did. Even Thompson, however, wrote about his own exploits as a way of exposing truths about the world, whether it was Hell's Angels or standard party politics. The point about engagement and gonzoism isn't that you have to talk about (and thus promote) yourself, but that whenever you do talk, you're honest about the fact that you're writing from a point of view. That's how I understand it, anyway. Example: Benetton writing about death row inmates; it's gonzo because it's engaged even though the author doesn't show up in it.

Having said that, however, if you're writing in a gonzo way, there is obviously a strong temptation to put yourself into the center of your story. I just don't think that's essential to gonzoism.

The posting size is not relevant. Not at all! I really don´t mind about a prolix speech. Sometimes it is the space and time we have to develop an idea. And if I link to my personnal blog just a few would understand (it´s written in portuguese). I do prefer to blog without self censorship. The most important in the Gonzo idea is the voice reverbaration. We cannot do that without speaking freely.

To Mike's point/question about how Gonzo Marketing relates to self-promotion. My first response to that is that there is a direct correlation. Both the Gonzo book and the Cluetrain Manifesto consistently come back to "voice" as the seminal ingredient. A voice is not a voice if it is not speaking. One doesn't have to be an egomaniac in the process... there seem to be many humble postings going on out there, but how would you market if you didn't say anything (or write something)? You might also say that you are marketing something other than yourself such as a product or service, but in the Gonzo person-to-person style I think that self promotion goes hand in glove with the process. You may speak for the purpose of marketing, but in the process you as an individual become associated with the communication you put out there.

To honor Mike's request I'll keep this short and await echoes from the group...

I think this blog is getting under-utilized because we are not focused on discussing Gonzo. In addition, long posts tend to dominate.

I would like to suggest that we keep the posts short and point to our personal blogs for longer or off-topic posts. We might want to include a link to our personal blog to guide people to other thoughts we have.

I was wondering how does Gonzo relate to self-promotion?

Jeanne what a sweetheart you are. I didn't imagine that when I read Chris's suggestion that someone might want to take issue with that vacuuous review, that you would end up pasting into our own forum. On reading your note about it appearing twice I went back to look at the Amazon site to check it out. I say never look a free double-review in the mouth! And I liked the little one-liner at the top - "3 out of 3 people found the following review helpful". Let's hope that means they've bought the book.

Hey, there's no Eggnog around here, though I wish there were, and laced with Jack Daniel's as well. And there are not too many folks either, never mind that on a normal day there are only about five percent of the cubes and offices on my floor occupied. Today, on Christmas Eve, there are maybe five people and I hear a lot of laughter over in their direction. Perhaps they have some eggnog!

So Merry Christmas to all, And to All a Much Better Year than the last one! Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hannuka, Ramadan, Kwanza or a Holiday based on no particular faith whatever, have a very Happy One. There are hundreds of belief systems I know nothing about, but I know that most of the cultures of our blue and green little planet celebrate the changing of the seasons, and all of those aforementioned religious events fall on or near the Winter Solstice. Funny thing about that. Our Druid (and other forms of "pagan") forbears celebrated all of the solstices and the in-betweens as well and most of our modern holidays line up somewhat with those old traditions. Have a great year!

Ah--I see our own Jack Reed has posted a wonderful retort to the bag-o-wind on Amazon who thinks Gonzo Marketing is not book worthy. As good as the review is (and it is), it's even better that Amazon has somehow managed to post it twice in a row, nicely boosting Gonzo back up to four-and-a-half stars. Nice gonzo goin Jack!

Text below:
Sweep Away the Cobwebs & See What's Behind Them, December 19, 2001
Reviewer: Jack Reed from Bay Area, CA

I disagree with the recent review that thinks this subject only deserves an "article" instead of a book. The reviewer seems to think that because Locke does not provide a nice neat little well annotated map of the future of the Net as it relates to business and marketing that he hasn't done a service worthy of "book" status.

Just because you recognize that something is wrong doesn't mean you know precisely what right is. We all know that the torrent of spam that we are daily assailed with is the wrong way to market on the Web (how many of you have really bought anything that was so advertised). But while Gonzo Marketing does not spell out the precise ABCs of what is developing in this New World, he does a very exemplary job of talking about it's roots and realities. I think perhaps the most important single word that is used in both Gonzo Marketing (and The Cluetrain Manifesto) is "voice". The Net and it's derivitive, the Web, are forums for the individual voice to speak quietly but to a huge audience. It is this voice, this individual human communication that matters, because while we'll all trash a spam email within milliseconds, most of us will responed to a truly individual message from another human being. This takes the market back to what is originally was before it was usurped by corporations to mean masses of blank faces, and present it as the simple aggregation of people who wish to have discourse about their daily needs and perhaps exchange a few items for a few other items. Never mind that we're not really a bartering economy anymore, the character of that ancient market place is still deeply embedded in our psyches and most of us feel comfortable on that more personal basis. Locke even points out that Amazon is participating in his view of the current Net market by the very fact that it lets it's buyers review the books they purchase and thereby pass on to others a personal account of the value of the product.

So I say that you should buy the book if you are prepared to think for yourselves and project what Locke says onto whatever micro world you live and make money in. There simply are no books that can tell you extactly how to do it, although many claim to, but this book reminds you of lots of truths that you may have let slip into the sub-conscious realm, and once you have brought them back into view it is quite possible that you can apply Gonzo principles to whatever it is that you do with your life.

I'm sure it'll be a slow week over here on RGE, unless folks take time off from their eggnog to blog. Over in RageBoy land in his EGR and the Way It Was post, there's a really interesting reference to a book Steve Larsen is working on, "What Were We Thinking?" The best place to read it is over on Topica, where Chris posts the first chapter. For anyone into Gonzo Marketing or the end of business as usual, this is really amazing. Reading Larsen's recap of the smoke-filled brain-busting gatherings of the early net catalysts is like being a fly on the wall at a party for the coolest of the cool people. Better yet, a full-fledged RageBoy rant is recounted--sure to please rage-heads everywhere.

And to all a good night.... it is an oft too repeated truism that this Season and it's Spirit can create quite the opposite feelings in a lot of people. I look on Christmas in much the same way I did as a child, which is to say I hold it in my heart the way I did as a child. As for the present, to echo Christopher's lament, it can become way too blue and far too stressed out. In my case that's partly because I cannot completely recapture the innocence of Christmas Past. I still love to sing carols, and I get misty eyed at the strangest times, but I live alone and do not put up a tree because that would only emphasize the point that the family always decorated the tree together and I don't need yet another reminder that I will be spending this time of togetherness alone. Maybe the blues Chris was speaking of had nothing to do with Christmas (he did say they were for no particular reason), but Jeneane echoed similar thoughts and so have many others in my circle of friends. It is indeed ironic that I feel blue when I still feel that this is a season of great emotional depth, good tidings and joy.

And by the way, Jeneane, I do think the silence was accidental... a mere reflection of the ebb and flow of the life tides of it's members.

And Chris, I did read some of EGR and the Topica Archives (and wrote my own review of Gonzo with a bit of counterpoint to the item you mentioned). There is so much there to read and my time is not always my own, but it's good to know the archives are there whenever I do get a few minutes to do as I please.

So I hope your blues are a shade you can deal with. Put some Blues CDs on the changer and listen. The Blues are a tonic for being in a Blue Mood! Just lay back and listen to a great player bending those notes like the world tries to bend us. The notes always resolve and so mostly do our lives.

Good Cheer to all....

Good article: Independents Day: When it comes to Net news, small can be beautiful by J.D.Lasica.
"each created and operated largely by one person, show that you don't need a large staff and venture-capital seed money to do news on the Net.(...) What the creators of KenRadio, Kuro5hin, IWantMedia and Metafilter share is a relentless drive, a passion for their subject matter, and an abiding respect for the power of the Internet to reach thousands of readers cheaply and effectively "

You're not alone, Jeneane, grueling work and the holiday rigmorole have been a deadly combination for me this year. "No patience for reason, no time for truth" has been resonating all month. Also resonating in a more positive key, though, has been proof (?) that the gonzo model could work even in my own stodgy old profession, the legal one. As an appellate lawyer, I and my ilk tend to long unrequitedly for ways to forge genuine connections with our core audience - the judges who decide whether our clients deserve to win the cases we present. Do judges have passions too, that have nothing - yet perhaps everything - to do with how they go about their daily grind of administering justice? Boy howdy yeah, who knew? Here in my neck of the woods they seem to be downright taken with Winston Churchill (scroll down to "Local and National" and read on). Unsurprisingly, Sir Winston has a number of loyal fans here at The Firm, as well. Hmmm.... Further proof that gonzo lives in unexpected places is a wildly witty column that one of these Churchillian jurists produces every month for a local bar association magazine and Web site: A Criminal Waste Of Space. Bill Bedsworth clearly needs a blog.

Keep the Visine and egg nog close at hand and all will be well.

Hey, hello, I haven't died. yet. Actually, I've been putting a bit more time in on my zine, Entropy Gradient Reversals -- that's the link to the web page, but uh, mumble... I haven't updated it for about two years I think. Nothing like being a real on-top-of-it web goo-roo, eh? To see what I've been spewing forth elsewhere of late, you'll have much better luck checking the EGR Topica archive (please overlook the fact that the posts are in chronological order so that you have to page to the end to see the new ones. Duh! Topica is a little slow in the interface dept.) Of course, all this is assuming you give a rat's ass what I've been up to. Just thought I'd explain why I've been such a stranger here. Also, apropos of nothing in particular, I've got the dirty funky no-good low-down good-for-nothin blues tonight for reasons I don't even want to think about. But that's another story altogether.

Jack, I am sorry and guilty. I have been so consumed with family issues that I haven't paid attention to anything. When silence creeps in, I tend to go back and quote Gonzo...

"People tend to join into self-selecting communities online, but unless we’re talking about buying clubs, they don’t typically aggregate around products. Instead, they come together around common interests. They may 'consume’ products in the process, but this consumption is a side effect."

Just what we've been talking about, so let's talk...

And...

"As networking replaces broadcasting, communication must become richer and more interesting -- not just louder and more insistent. It must have character, invite participation. Must differentiate itself from the plethora of uncommunicative corporate blather, which by its sheer volume -- in both senses -- threatens to drown out all memory of life- before-the-brand."

I am so tired. There are several reasons why we don't do Christmas at our house--reasons of Spirit. Reasons of reason. Many reasons, actually. And each year the world proves to me why I think it's okay that we choose to focus on the words within the Word, the meaning on the inside and the other side of our selves. And still, stress is palpable. Can't blog much, can't write much, can't hear myself think.

It comes down to individuality--as in life as it is in this blog. Fuck uniformity. Oneness combined makes more than itself, but it is still the singular which is significant. Meaning propagating at lighning speed. That is the beauty of it, then. And if you know what I'm saying, you're one up on me.

But at least I said something. Jack is right. We are too quiet. Is it purposeful silence or accidental? Let's see.

ho.
-j.

Hey!! Where did eveyone go? I posted on the 13th and today is the 18th... did I drive everyone out of the forum, or are you all out "On Holiday"? I've been spreading the word, as it were, to various friends who I think are in a position to appreciate the material, such as web designers, etc. But I' miss opening up Gonzo Engaged to see the newest additions.... and there are none!! Get busy you people!

OKBye...

Denver, et al.... I'd be happy making money in any fashion, via any media, anyway, anyhow! Actually I spoke too quickly there. To slightly revise that statement I would say that I have found that there are people in the world who live to make money. They don't care how they do it, and if the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune knock them out of one arena, they just climb up onto another one and make some more money. They are good at making money and that is their primary goal. My primary goal is to think, converse, be creative, make things, write and interact with my fellow travellers without constantly wondering if I am shortly to join the familiar American sub-culture of shopping cart pushers who scratch out their meager existence picking aluminum cans out of public trash barrels.

And I do understand about "getting one's A into G"... I have so many things that want doing... two web sites that I already have the domain names for but haven't found the time to actually create and mount on a server. But sometimes by the time I get home the day has been so long that I find myself adrift in a haze of inactivity, all the while reviewing my "todo" list in my tired brain!

I did check out the blackmarket site you mentioned... nice idea... I'm glad to see that it's working out. Seeing the success of others can leave one feeling either jealous or encouraged. Thankfully I'm of the latter inclination. When I see a good idea being well executed it encourages me to think along more positive lines.

So I guess I'd better overcome the ennui and get those web sites up so you can review them!

Oh, yeah, to reflect on another of your comments about the Net being no more the world than TV... I agree in the sense that it matches the concept that "the map is never the territory". In other words an abstract is always just that, some bits and pieces that in one's mind respresents something real. But I think that possibly the Net is a lot closer to the real world because it is interactive. You can talk back to it and it will respond, often with as much variety and un-expectablity that the real world has. Because anybody of any ilk can respond to what you put out there you can find every kind of response, hopefully more from kindred souls than assholes, but like the real world, there's no asshole filter, so you say what you say and you get what you get.

Go Voice!!!

Later...

Making Money On The Web? An esoteric mystery, a genuine five-star bamboozler.



JACK:
When I get my A into G and start my wee Gonzo rating service, I promise your site as good a review as it warrants. ;-)

Seriously, did you look at www.blackmarket.co.nz ? 250K in the first year, looking at 1 Mill in the second. No marketing other than word of mouth and voluntary signup to their list. (No Chris, they don't spam you with the first invitation. They let your friends do that for them . . . . .)

Would that do it for you Jack?

And recall Chris' own RageBoy example, one of the reasons we're all here is that somehow or another GM: WTWP clued us in to EGR or EGR clued us in to GM: WTWP. And GM:WTWP went way up the Amazon sales lists before it was printed purely on the strength of the perverse relationship RageBoy has with his readership.

Yes, your milage may well vary. I too doubt that there is the same market for stringed instruments as there is for cheap wines (more's the pity!) but I assume that there is sufficient market to keep an honest and competent craftsman in reasonable comfort if not splendour.

I imagine that Chris started EGR with so few readers it looked like no-one would ever listen to him. Right now I cannot for the life of me recall how I got onto his list, but I recall vividly the first one I read, and I am inutterably glad that somehow I did.


DENISE:
Are these the only possibilities? West Wing or What? (Why is West Wing assumed to be such a good thing anyway? I hate it. Am I a micromarket?) Anyway, I wouldn't trust the high priests of the proven business model to be thinking about radical new heresies in producer to market communications. Don't expect them to think outside the box when they're still denying there's anything outside the box at all.


JENEANE & ANDREW:
Underwriting is not intended, as I understand it, as some disjoint or isolate altruism. It is a marketing tool, and as such would be financed from a marketing budget. But it is a tool that is markedly different from the traditional broadcast media tools and therefore requires different handling to prevent significant harm to the user. Whether any big corpses* ever use it, or keep using it after experimenting with it, will depend to some degree (as you noted) on the return on their investment.

* What else do you call a body with no mind, no soul, & no heart?

But it seems to me that the issue is not one of efficacy, since Chris has already proven to some degree that "Gonzo Works", but of comprehension and maturity. We all have adolescent fantasies - hell, I'm 35 and I still have them!

But maturing is supposedly about dealing with reality as it is, and part of that for the corporate marketing department in the age of Internet-enabled vocality is the realisation that their target markets never existed anywhere but in their heads. The view they had/have about their markets is an artifact of the tools they use to explore their world, not of the reality of that world as it really is.

The internet, with its emails, blogs, icq's and aim's, flash, shockwave, java and xml, etc etc, is a new toolbox for exploring the world.

It is no more the world than was TV, but while it is not the world, it certainly makes visible new vistas that were previously obscured to those inhabiting the corner offices in BlaBla Land.

They also need to realise that no consumer ever bought anything they didn't want just because of spamming techniques. The spammers convinced themselves of that to justify their existence. So that talking in a human manner to real people you know actually want what you have is not confining your marketing to some "micro" organism that is beneath the consideration of someone with a SuperBowl ad campaign budget.

Did anyone actually at or watching the SuperBowl really go and buy something just because of some slick multimillion dollar ad? Really? I'd concede the choice of make/model could be affected but I'd resist the notion that the ad could create a desire that wasn't already there . . . .



ANDREW:
Rave on Tropic of Cancer. Say what you wanna say, do what you wanna do. Don't let the bastards grind you down. Don't let them tell you how to play the game, nor which game to play.

Personally, I refuse to do a job I don't enjoy, but that's because I'm arrogant enough to believe I don't have to. Maybe at some later date I'll get scared of uncertainty and settle for wage-slavery without enjoyment, but not today.



HERNANI:
I think that (partly for reasons discussed above) some corpses will never get it. Many of the people I've encountered in high positions in business life have the emotional maturity of a buck rabbit. Hell, I may well be one of them. Fear and Greed are the cages in which they have voluntarily imprisoned themselves so that they can shut out the rest of humanity, or even the recognition of their own.


TEAM:
Your Output Is My Input. I leave you alone for a couple of days and you go ballistic. WeeeeeeLaa! I'll have to shut up more often. Now there's a Gonzo thought . . . .

I have something to say: It is better to burn out, than to fade away.
The Kirgan, from Highlander, plagiarising Neil Young.