If You Build It, They Will Come. And Spam.

Posted by Cyndy Aleo-Carreira on July 17th, 2007

There's a gaggle of marketing opportunists out there who are following Web 2.0 just as closely, if not more so, than you are. The reason? An ever-increasing need to find out what the Next Big Thing is so that they can use it in new, annoying ways.

Did you know that MySpace is dead? Second Life is as well. This is how Internet marketers see tech; if an influx of people is suddenly heading in a certain direction, then the old service must be dead. There is an entire industry devoted to articles and eBooks about how to leverage the latest and greatest technology to promote your business, and companies large and small jump on the latest bandwagon almost as fast as early adopters do.

Think about it. When was the last time you checked your MySpace account and had an actual person who wanted to add you as a friend instead of someone using it to try to promote their business? And if you think Facebook is immune, think again. Companies are already on the move since Facebook opened up to widgets. Everyone is trying to get in in the action, from Google to Reebok to the little affiliate marketers.

Still not convinced? Even the New York Times has noticed the ever-shifting mob mentality when it comes to Internet marketing. Companies flocked to Second Life to establish a corporate presence there, but then moved out and moved on, with their newest gimmick apparently Twitter, as our own Michael noted. Twitter spam has been around since the early adopter crowd, with Steve Poland outing himself as the first Twitter spammer back in April. But what will be the Next Big Thing?

Apparently, it's widgets, as evidenced by the formation of the Widget Marketing Association. Yes, you read that right. There is already a marketing association for widgets, and their first order of business is figuring out what a widget actually is. There's a marketing association for something that doesn't even have a clear, standard definition. If that doesn't make your head spin, I don't know what will.

The new gauge of whether a Web 2.0 platform has reached critical mass may be “It will grow until they can sell you Viagra.”

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