The biggest pile of biased crap I've read for a long time and confirmation for me, at least, that The Verge is ultimately no better than any of the outlets it was trying to replace.
They take some bad apples from a niche and use that to extrapolate a whole business model and set of practices as being bad. I think it's sloppy, non-objective, ersatz journalism that merely peddles FUD. And even their choice of "bad apples" is questionable: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Frank-Kern/137568852956377
I can only speak for Kern and Jenkins but they've both put out some good products and are essentially info publishers who use certain high exposure and highly effective marketing techniques.
But if using cheap products to build leads who you then sell bigger ticket products to is a scam, well, a large amount of HN readers are involved in that "scam" too (yes, offering a webinar or a PDF to get people to sign up to your e-mail list is a "scam" supposedly!) Except, it's not a scam.. and this article is just a badly written pile of crap, all IMHO, of course.
While I agree with the author that there are so many scam artists out there and you do need to do your due diligence, I do not think how the following sentence defines marketing on the internet is correct:
"The term Internet Marketing describes both a particular business model used to sell fraudulent products and services online, and the community or subculture that embraces it."
Sorry, but this article was written by an idiot. Please see the line:
Raygoza is an Internet Marketer — a 21st century snake oil salesman.
or
The term Internet Marketing describes both a particular business model used to sell fraudulent products and services online, and the community or subculture that embraces it.
Equating get-rich-quick scam artists with the entirety of the internet marketing spectrum is absolutely ridiculous.
Interesting article, it could've used a little editing - too long, fluffy, and has unnecessary descriptions that hurt the piece, e.g. "(which, for some reason is rated “M for mature,” like Grand Theft Auto IV)."
They take some bad apples from a niche and use that to extrapolate a whole business model and set of practices as being bad. I think it's sloppy, non-objective, ersatz journalism that merely peddles FUD. And even their choice of "bad apples" is questionable: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Frank-Kern/137568852956377
I can only speak for Kern and Jenkins but they've both put out some good products and are essentially info publishers who use certain high exposure and highly effective marketing techniques.
But if using cheap products to build leads who you then sell bigger ticket products to is a scam, well, a large amount of HN readers are involved in that "scam" too (yes, offering a webinar or a PDF to get people to sign up to your e-mail list is a "scam" supposedly!) Except, it's not a scam.. and this article is just a badly written pile of crap, all IMHO, of course.