Things aren’t cool anymore once everybody starts doing them, that’s the Law of Cool*. The same applies to selling one’s immortal soul on the Internet, which has entered let’s-throw-a-toga-party-like-they-did-on-Animal-House status**. Our latest soul peddler is from New Zealand, who learned like others before him that hosted auction websites don’t want anywhere near his soul or lack thereof.
Selling Out Our Control Of The Internet
I apologize for the liberal quoting of Matt Cutts comments over on sphinn, but I think it’s important to understand the ramifications of something like this:
Wall Street Finally Notices Googlers Selling Shares
Google’s top executives have been selling their holdings non-stop for almost three and a half years, a trend that ultimately gained some attention from the market.
MacBook Air Not Selling All That Well
Only Apple knows exactly how many MacBook Airs it expected to sell, and thus, only Apple knows whether current figures are disappointing. Still, new findings suggest that people are doing more looking than buying, and that by year’s end, transactions involving the Air will account for only 16 percent of Mac sales.
Plaxo Interested In Selling Itself
We’re in a quiet time of year – not much happens during the holiday season or for a short period afterwards. Plaxo is reportedly trying to sell itself, though, and discussions about the company’s reputation and its asking price have stirred things up a bit.
Selling a Company on Enterprise Search
I spoke at the Gilbane conference yesterday (you can download my slides on semantic search).
Efficiency of Selling High Priced Items on the Web
I wanted to get my wife something cool for her birthday, but the gift I wanted to buy proved nearly impossible to find from a trustworthy source. I was going to get her a high end autographed item, but who should I buy it from?
Selling Paid Links Can Hamper Your Google Rankings
Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land points out that "Selling paid links can hurt your page rank or rankings on Google". He says, "More and more, I’ve been seeing people wondering if they’ve lost traffic on Google because they were detected to be selling paid links."
Selling Information Will Become a High Touch Industry
Newspapers Going Free
The NYT just went free and likely the WSJ will follow. Once something goes free it is hard to start charging for it again – just ask Prince.
Google Selling Top Organic Spot?
I’m not sure if this can be filed under “lawsuits filed purely for publicity” quite yet, but apparently the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC) is suing Google for selling the #1 organic spot in their search results. Now, either someone is confused, or the rest of the SEO industry is seriously getting gypped.