The internet is a landscape that changes more than Dow Jones Industrial. Not only are new sites popping up frequently and dying frequently, the collective perception and habits of surfers changes constantly. Many traditional marketers don't understand this concept. They are set in their ways of doing a report, finding out some data, and developing a 5 year plan based on that information. They see the tactics that work in their stores, on there phones, and in their catalogs, and they then try to apply those theories to their web site.

What these people, marketers, business owners, MBA's, and CEO's fail to realize is this is the dumbest thing they can do. This is taking a square peg and putting it in a round hole. This is the type of move a 1 year old makes between crapping themselves and throwing up spaghetti-o's.

Taking a retail marketer or a generic marketer and telling them to now be a e-commerce marketer or a online marketer is like taking a guy who grew the best damn apples in the orchards of California and moving them to Florida to help you grow your oranges. Sure, it's still fruit, it still grows on trees, it still needs to be picked and shipped across the country. But would you do what you did for apples to oranges? I doubt it. It's different soil, different plants, different fertilizer, and different fruit. This is the exact same thing as throwing someone online who has never been there before.

I read a post today about something i've know a while: People type URL's into the search bar instead of typing them into the address bar. This isn't new. I've known this for over a year and a half now and for some reason, when mentioned that a research group mentioned it to a room full of internet marketers at a conventions, apparently, no body understood it and were dumbfounded by this.

This is what surprises the hell out of me. If you claim to be an internet marketer, you knew this. You knew the shit out of this. You could even tell by the fact that more people found your site through google than typing it in. To an experienced internet marketer, this is like telling a 80 year old the sky is blue. No shit?

What also vexes me is that so many people think they can make it big on the internet or in the field because they have years of experience in marketing or retail. The internet is a different animal. Your MBA from 1996 is now useless on the internet if you didn't jump in 15 years ago. Your PHD or masters or whatever, useless. Your years of experience off the internet, translates to entry level on the internet. Deal with it.

If you are thinking of going online, don't. You can't do it. What you know isn't what you need to know. Call someone like me and watch your conversion rate soar, you backlinks flourish, your RSS feeds get hit, and your bounce rate diminish. Watch people find your site and remember your brand.

If you don't listen to people who know like me and jonesey, see you after the bubble. I'll be the one with all the money.

Ok, rant over.

-Wahalla