John Bresee Covers the Whole Internet
I’ve never been to a First Friday that started or ended on time. The problem with this one (my second) is that I couldn’t hear or understand most of it. And I was sitting on the second row. It wasn’t loud enough and covered so much ground that it was tough to follow.
But let me tell the truth: he lost me when he said he wasn’t going to talk about affiliate marketing.
He said he failed algebra three times. He failed journalism and intro to computers once.
“The world is awash in money,” he said. It’s just figuring out which bucket to pick up. If you try to pick up all of them, you won’t make any money.
If you wanted a philosophical musing about the internet – which Bresee says changes faithfully every 18 months – it was great.
6 Responses to “John Bresee Covers the Whole Internet”
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October 5th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
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October 5th, 2007 at 6:02 pm
His lack of enthusiasm for affiliate marketing makes me wonder if he things that affiliate marketing is in a state of decline. My observation is that the vast majority of affiliates never got minimum wage for their efforts and the market seems to be getting significantly tougher to crack.
October 5th, 2007 at 6:33 pm
Kevin,
That’s not it at all. Yes, affiliate marketing is more sophisticated and competitive but there is still a lot of opportunity. The reason he didn’t speak on it is because it’s been 18 months since he was involved in affiliate marketing. He knew he wasn’t up-to-date. He doesn’t need to be either. Backcountry.com was bought out for millions and I’m sure he’s doing very well.
Janet
October 5th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
Dang! If I knew he wasn’t going to talk about affiliate marketing I would have gone!
October 5th, 2007 at 10:17 pm
I know John personally and I can vouch were he to think affiliate marketing were important to be heard he would have spoke about it. Perhaps he was trying to send a message? Was there something more important he spoke about? Why do you think he didn’t speak about affiliate marketing?
He’s shown he is successful – I’m sure he had some great things to learn from. I’m sorry I couldn’t be there!
October 5th, 2007 at 11:16 pm
I admit, I was mad during the presentation because he was repeating all of the “marketing wisdom” that I really detest. Specifically the idea that there is only room for one company at the top of the category. A similar line of reasoning says that there really is only one category. When people, especially those who flunk journalism school and algebra, start down this chain of reasoning, they suddenly start doing mean anti-market things to the people around them.
The idea that there can only be one leads to an ideology of “dominate or perhish.” This is a self fulfilling prophecy as people who hold to it have a knack for structuring things so that it must be true. A good example of the dominate or perish idea was the VCLK / BEFREE merger. This merger occurred simply to destroy BEFREE. Another good example of the ideology is that the big networks openly supported the development of spyware for several years. They engaged in an act that directly undermined their markets based on the idiotic notion that they must dominate or perish.
For that matter, the idiotic dotcoms of 1999 burned their venture capital selling below cost based on the notion that there could be only one company in each market. They imploded and destroyed billions in capital.
I think there could be a long sustainable future in affiliate marketing that makes many people prosper. The biggest obstacle to this dream is the ideology that Bresee was reciting.
I know that I always sound like a negative curmudgeon, that is because I actually believe the opposite. There is opportunity, but people have to protect that opportunity.