FND Blog

Hypocrisy Watch: Seth Godin's Squidoo Marketing

Seth Godin was my hero. He used to hold my rapt attention with his marketing insights. I found many of them helpful in selling my book. However, Squidoo, his new Web 2.0 project, has been his undoing. By constantly bringing it up in his blog and interjecting it into unrelated posts, his pushiness accomplishes three things, none of them good: 1). he taints his advice with ulterior motives, 2). he disobeys his own Permission Marketing precepts and, 3). he sets off alarm bells that tell everyone his project is not doing so well.

That's all well and fine. I just vote with my feet and don't go there much anymore. But when he lashes out at Amazon for doing the same thing, blog-rage sets in and I just have to say something.

Seth, I give you permission to tell me about your marketing insights and business contrarianism but I do not give you permission to use those posts as billboards to sell me lenses, lensranks and lensmasters, or your leftist politics (or your rightist politics, for that matter). I come to your site for one thing: M-A-R-K-E-T-I-N-G. Anything else is crap and makes your brand schizophrenic.

If I had any money, I'd send Seth copies of his own books. Instead, I'm going to do the only thing that I can do that's free; I'm reluctantly adding his name to the Hypocrites Page of Shame.

UPDATE: No trackback at sethgodin.typepad.com.
UPDATE: Hour 1, still no trackback.
UPDATE: It's up! Thanks, Seth.
UPDATE: Seth commented. Hey, Seth, I'm not offended. I just want you to get your magic back. How's this? New Rule. Don't mention or link to Squidoo for a month. You can do it. Fight the pain. Then report back up and let us know what happens. We can work on Karl Rove later.

Hypocrisy Watch: Paparazzi-News Takes the High Road When Covering Friends

When two TV helicopters collided over Phoenix a few minutes ago, the lone news chopper still hovering in the sky refused to zoom in on the crash site. The pilot/reporter explained it thus as his cameraman zoomed in then zoomed back out:

"This is very bad up here...I don't want to get in too close and broadcast something this tragic. The people in those helicopters could be really good friends of ours."

Now the hypocrisy is obvious. Minutes before, these news crews were all frothing for the same story, a police chase on the streets below, and were none too hesitant to crank up the magnification in hopes of getting a tasty gun fight on tape for the major networks. When it comes to the other guy, the press' indelicate need to "inform the people" always trumps privacy and decency. However, when the story gets too personal, morals and ethics take over.

Which is it? If my hypothesis is correct--that there is no such thing as hypocrisy--then you have to identify the lie. Here, the lie is "the people have a right to know." Obviously, if it involves something personal as in this case, that right can be arbitrarily suspended. So why does the press insist on being voyeuristic vampires? All the usual suspects: greed, pride, influence.

So the next time you hear the media spout their mantra "we want the people to know," watch their lips. What they're really saying is "we want money, notoriety and power." No different than the people like me and you they are trying to take down.

Posted also at Sister Toldjah.

Captain Ed picks up on the lie here, too along with Ed Driscoll.