I did a search recently for a newish Google product called "Local Business Ads." It's a new kind of advertising service that I wanted to evaluate for our clients and see if we should start using it. What I really wanted to find were some thoughts from people who have been using it already.
What I found, though, was a whole bunch of posts from the day it launched -- all of them reading something like this:
"Google just launched Local Business Ads! It's too early to tell if it will work, but it looks like it might be really cool..."
Literally all 20 of the top-20 results were from the day of the launch. (Excluding the official LBA product page on Google's site.) One guy had taken screen shots of each step of the signup process.
Where's the thoughtful contemplation? Where's the careful consideration of pros and cons? Retrospection?
I'm careful not to write a bunch of "me-too" posts on my own site. Maybe I'm missing a bunch of traffic that I could be getting in the weeks following a splashy product release. But I hope my site reflects a little more thought about the things I choose to write.
(And yes, I'm still doing my thesis on the value of blogs as original information sources and trend indicators.)
Comments (2)
Thanks for adding your blog to the list of blogs that post about Google Launching Local Business Ads without giving any "thoughtful contemplation" or "careful consideration of pros and cons" or "retrospection." Oh, the irony of it all.
Posted by Entrepreneurship and Technology | May 17, 2006 8:55 PM
Posted on May 17, 2006 20:55
"Irony? Oh. We don't get that here." :o)
No, actually, while I appreciate irony in all forms, I was posting here about the value of blogs. I am ordinarily a staunch defender of "new media" (in my Master's program, we have more newspaper people than anything else), I posted this as an example of a weakness in many blogs. Or a weakness in my own argument in defense of blogs.
Posted by Tom Dalton | May 17, 2006 9:36 PM
Posted on May 17, 2006 21:36