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I INVENTED DOMAIN NAMES (And Other Bizarre Bursts of Hot Air)

Recently I did an interview with Todd Mintz of SEOpdx.com for the popular website http://www.searchengineguide.com. It was a nice article, and I appreciate anyone’s interest in what I have to say. The article was picked up by several blogsites, including Sahar Sarid’s respected blogsite (http://www.conceptualist.com) in an abridged form. I received a lot of nice comments and phone calls from it. (Thanks Sahar!)

In my interview, for a matter of brevity (something lots of people know I don’t embrace), I generalized my consulting duties with a certain company, and an ex-employee of that company took it to task, posting a comment belittling my contribution as a consultant to that company. The ex-employee never worked with me. I don’t know who he is, and didn’t meet with him as far as I can remember. He didn’t exist in my contract with this company, although he decided that posting a contrary remark about me was a wise thing to do. This presented a quandary for me, because I love flame wars, yet I have to honor my confidentiality clauses with my clients. In this case, I chose to honor my client and not respond in detail to the disgruntled loser. Darn.

However, I am now just digging a hole in wet sand.

The point I want to make here is that if you are in a business that has a tight social structure where many of the people in the same business category know each other, you may need or desire to make a statement publicly. Unfortunately, there may be a few naysayers ready to smear your name, belittle your achievements, and make fun of your dog as soon as you open your mouth. So before you do an interview that may be picked up by your industry publications, you have to ask yourself a mutated version of the well-known journalistic idiom: “Who, What, When, Where, Why?”

“Who can I talk to, What can I say, When can I say it, Where will it be published, and Why am I saying it?”

There are legendary missteps in the printed word online. Many of us have seen those forum threads where an unfortunate, albeit inexperienced poster, gets railroaded into committing hari-kari by saying or doing something that is wrong, stupid, unpopular or uninformed, and then tries to defend themselves. Immediately bloodlust fills the air, and every forum member who doesn’t have much to do, or feels insecure about themselves, or is unhappy with their lives because they eat too many Doritos, comes lurching out of the shadows and the feeding frenzy starts. The box of popcorn icons appear. One-liners abound every few posts. A lot of ass-kissing kudos are bandied about, and ultimately, the subject matter gets buried and the personal hygiene and character of several members of the forum are attacked. If the forum “popularity” posts get their way, in some extreme examples, the unpopular member LOSES THEIR JOB. Good grief people. How would you like to lose your job because you tried to promote your organization’s position in a forum where people attacked YOU personally for your “forum naivety”?

Many of the biggest domainers have their own blogs and rarely suffer negative comments from people reading their posts. That could be because the blog owner has the ability to delete unflattering comments. So you really never know how many readers are disagreeing with the blog owner. I can’t name names of popular blogsters who delete derogatory comments, but I can tell you that I don’t do that. Bring it. I will jump into the sh*t with my boots on.

Bottom line, be prepared to defend yourself in a fast moving big money industry if you have competitors without scruples. As far as posting on forums, be prepared to read idiotic comments from hairy fat shadows who revel in their post-counts and actually believe that the more posts they’ve made makes them experts on anything they post.

It’s an amazing sight to see and to participate in if you have the time because you’re tired of “Simpsons” reruns. So how much input should you give and what if someone turns personal on you? It’s all just a matter of your own comfort level and your personality. However, be prepared for the worst. What you say could bounce back and try to make you “tap out”. It could bang you on your forehead, frustrating you enough to where you explode, spraying out bullets of vitriol you never knew you had in you.

We’ve all seen posts attacking polarizing figures in our industry. I’ve participated in a few, back in the old days (six months ago). However, the one thing I’ve noticed that impresses me the most about reading and involving myself with my overblown opinions on forums or blogs is: The Biggies Never Post On Forums. The Biggies post on their own blogs where they can control the responses. The Biggies put out “white papers”. The Biggies don’t care enough about what the wannabees in the forums have to say, no matter how many posts the wannabees have under their name.

I wanna be a Biggie, (but I like those flame wars). My advice is: don’t participate in forums unless you have something to sell. Don’t do interviews where the interviewer asks you what your accomplishments are because there’s always some whiner ready to demean you, unless of course, you live in the Cayman Islands.