Dmitry Davidov is an internet marketer and adsense guru (although he probably doesn’t agree with that label) that has achieved the dream of self-sufficiency by making money on the internet. In this interview I ask him about the means by which he has achieved his success and the kind of lifestyle this affords him. We also explore in depth some of the philosophic and ethical issues that concern the science of marketing. This is a must read for anyone looking to earn a living on the internet. As anyone who reads this blog might know, I don’t see eye to eye with Dmitry on many things (which makes for a great interview), but his answers are thoughtful, well considered, and insightful. My thanks to Dmitry for the time taken to give me this interview.
Dorris Lessing is the latest of a growing list of notable people who have spoken out against the internet, claiming in short that it makes us stupid. Another prominent example is the author Andrew Keen who argues first that user generated content (along with copyright infringement and the like) is undermining the business models that enable the production of quality content - content that is vetted by professionals. On the other side you have people like Lawrence Lessig who argues in defence of the cult of the amateur and the democratisation of content production. It’s interesting that the internet has produced such divergent interpretations of its contribution. Either it will liberate us from the elite culture makers, or it will doom us to a swill of endless mediocrity where we can’t tell fact from fiction. Either it will be the birth of a new democratic consciousness, or the end of consciousness itself. I’m not going to take a side in this particular debate. It is an old debate as I will point out in greater detail below. However, there is a manner in which the internet may provide for a genuine raising of consciousness, one which is continually overlooked by the pundits. It’s nature is not what you’d expect - and it certainly doesn’t rely on a wholesome belief in the goodness of the average human being.
For those of us who wonder how it is that religion continues to dominate the imaginations of the vast majority of the people on this earth - there is really only one answer. Better marketing. Those of us who really believe in science as a better explanation of our place in this universe are generally too busy doing science to spend time trying to get across the concept to those who let themselves be deluded by religious ideas. We hope the example provided is itself enough to gain conversions. But it’s just not working out that way. Meanwhile, religion retains and extends its mass appeal. But what is it about its marketing process that is so superior? And what does this process demonstrate about those who are so entranced by it? The following video is an excellent example:
A while back I wrote about the brave new revenue sharing world that is fast approaching. I argued that in order to infiltrate word of mouth distribution channels, companies would begin to share revenue with their services. I predicted that the result would be the total commodification of our social lives and I painted nightmare scenarios where we were paid to influence our friends, colleagues and loved ones for the sake of a share in the profit. I want now to explore the possible effects of this change on our day to day lives. To what extent will our private, social lives become an extension of a capitalistic process that begins with a marketing decision made by the board members of a corporation, or the political advisors to a demagogue? To what extent was this always the case? And what would be the danger to society were this to become the case? Might we lose something vital that protects society - that allows it to adapt in response to change?
We are on the cusp of a new era of soulless, vacuous consumerism. A new breed of yuppie idiot - The iPhoney - has hit the streets. They’ve been waiting all their lives for that one piece of electronic gadgetry to fill that vast spiritual void. With the release of the iPhone that day has finally come. Now they can strap that status symbol straight to their chest and wear it with pride. But it even gets better than this: To reward its loyal horde of semi-professional zombies, Apple has shipped a second version of the phone, named after its beloved demographic: The iPhoney!
What I find interesting about his post is the strong conviction he has concerning the power of marketing to determine what people think. Seth Godin believes in the power of the story - the narrative that can inspire us, shape our ideas, and ultimately consume the desired product (although he urges that the story itself must be authentic). Responsible marketing.
In a two part post I put forward the thesis that competitive social instincts allow marketers to gain the influence that they do over our cultural forms of life. I argued that rather than influencing us directly, marketing messages are reinforced by peer group behaviour. I saw an example on youtube today that was so deliciously to the point that I had to share it.
In the first part of this article, I argued there was a explanatory gap in our understanding of the effectiveness of marketing in determining consumer behaviour. While it’s widely accepted that the technical mainstay of modern advertising - the association made between products and symbolic imagery - is extremely effective, no one seems able to explain the cognitive dissonance created in consumers. On the one hand they reject any suggestion that the advertisement has produced any effect on them, yet the billions of dollars spent on marketing every year attest to the exact opposite. I concluded by suggesting that the gap in the explanation was ‘us’ - that the symbolic associations are reinforced as a result of various ingrained social dynamics that commonly exist within social groups. In this part of the article I would like to demonstrate how this can be possible. The task is to give an account of some of the social dynamics that might play a role in this process. I will argue that one of the most significant arises out of agressive and competitive instincts that exist within social groups. While in most contexts these behaviours would be considered relatively harmless, nevertheless they do much to reinforce the advertising message. The picture we get then, is one in which we ultimately deliver ourselves over to the corporations, irrespective of the degree to which we originally felt aloof from their designs.
I’ve long been fascinated by the means by which the marketers so effectively manage to determine our choices in the marketplace. This effectiveness has long been appreciated by the corporations who spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year in marketing their services and products. While information about how these techniques work, and the reasons for their success, are starting to filter down to ordinary people (empowering their choices and to some degree liberating them from the malaise) - still many are unaware of their implicit involvement in marketing processes. We are helping the marketers and we don’t even know it. What I’ll attempt to demonstrate is the degree to which classic marketing techniques rely on the competitive and combative elements of human nature to re-inforce the individual marketing message. Once it is seen just how involved we all are, the insidious nature of corporate marketing becomes stark. We begin to realise just how much we help the marketers to do what they do.
In my previous post on this subject, I claimed that the revenue sharing model would provide an income stream to the general public that has never previously been accessible before. The central idea behind this claim was that many common activities on the internet, such as posting links, and embedding videos, serve as distribution points for content. As this process replaces (at least in part) the traditional role of distribution, it provides real value to those that produce the content. Hence, there exists a natural rationale for the content producers to provide a monetary reward for this act of distribution. In this post, I want to examine some of the possible effects the involvement of the general public in this kind of process may have. While the benefits of this revolutionary change will be enormous, the potential cost will probably be just as profound. The language of the debate elevates quickly into that of hyperbole – where some are quick to claim that the very thing at stake is the human soul itself. What it certainly does point to is the very conflicted relationship we all have as individuals to the capitalistic system that determines the substances of our lives. The thesis I propose is this: that for the first time in the history of capitalism people will have the choice to either opt in, or out of one of the fundamental processes that drives it – resolving the conflict one way or the other for that individual. We will see how this will come about in the sections below.