So the rich boys' club, who recently jumped onto the bandwagon,
had nary a clue about what really creates Web sticky-ness. But the
purveyors who are taking them for a ride do not know better. What
Web experience had they before they started out on their portals and
dotcoms? How many failed Web sites or businesses did they have under
their belt? Does a market exist or were we all getting on the
rollercoaster to nowhere until someone finally pulled the plug on
us?
But it couldn't end like this. While some of the local folks
preferred not to reinvent the wheel, others did possess enough
foresight to deliver quality. Suddenly, my faith in the Net
reinforced, I designed my defense with a second email, armed with
the necessary arguments.
Yes, my dear friend, my email began, it is gift to give. Sadly,
you have been online for seven years now and all you have done in
that time is to take from the Net. Don't you realize that your life
virtually mirrors real life? If you should take, therefore you must
give," I admonished.
My email took on a stronger stance.
"Perhaps", I suggested, "you were misled by the blue screen
staring out at you daily. You look at the computer in front of you
and think, 'I am searching for information, I am writing, I am doing
my math, I ask the necessary questions, etc, therefore I am giving'.
And that very thought is delightful. Wrong! You are just taking. You
have been using without much thinking. You have not looked beyond
the blue screen, at the hard work put in to present the facts you
eagerly searched for online in a readable and friendly matter.
"You have ignored the human hand that has reached out to you as
you navigate the unwieldy Web amidst a sea of information. You may
perhaps have had a fleeting brush with the people who worked to
deliver the best to you but you choose to look past it, into the
deep blue screen.
"In your mind, you are facing a computer, a silent slave that
operates at your beck and call, without realizing that the beeps and
blips are relaying your thoughts to the world, too. Your vision is
blurred, skewed to your satisfaction. You think you can lift
whatever others have painstakingly created and posted online and
call it your own. You do not think twice about duplicating. In
journalism, we call that plagiarism.
"In the real world, you can hide your shortcomings, but on the
Net it glares back at you, biding its time to make its majestic
comeback. The online world is startling transparent. And Yahoo!
continues to give, and because it gave, it has gained a huge
following. Why go elsewhere, the novice surfer will ask when one
single stop provides to his needs and more. His gratitude will
someday translate to a thank you, larger than you can imagine."
Hopefully, my friend received the message to step away from the
materialistic Malaysian mindset that is consumed with striking it
rich on the Web wagon. Net advertising is a bonus, not a
money-making machine. Forget the quantity and think about quality
for a change. For the true online user is looking for quality, not
quantity.
.gif){kind=small}
