If you're new here, you may want to visit MyMindshare.com first. That's really what this blog is all about. Thanks for visiting!

The following comes from George Gilder’s book Telecosm, written ten years ago, but I just finished reading it for the first time. Since I tend to read his books ten years after initial publication, and he seems to be at least ten years ahead of himself, we are both right on time.

In a world where advertisements are read only by people who choose to read them, the quality sharply improves. Freed from the meretricious need to appeal to passing strangers, advertisers ascend to a higher cultural level. The hokiness and smarm we associate with Madison Avenue dissipates and the advertiser makes an honest effort to convey as much information as possible in as compelling as possible a style. Advertising becomes an art of truth rather that an art of deceit.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121452513

Here in the United States, an office of the Pentagon held an unusual contest earlier this month. Researchers wanted to see how thousands of people around the world could compete and collaborate to solve a problem that was too big for any one individual. The task was to find balloons scattered around the U.S. Competitors posted information and misinformation on Twitter and other social networking sites. Dr. Peter Lee is with DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which sponsored the contest.

How’s this:

MyMindshare is an online marketing system that effectively and meaningfully connects marketers with consumers. It combines a bidding system like Google Adwords with a rating system like Digg.com with simplicity and usability like Craigslist. By harnessing the built-in incentives of a free market, MyMindshare aligns the interests of both marketers and consumers so that they can get together on equally valuable terms.

Ad agencies 15 years ago didn’t want to know whether or not their ads had actually been read, they told us. This was simply because if an advertiser discovered that few, if any, people were actually reading their ad on page 113, the company might just pull that ad and save their money, taking revenue away from the ad agency in the process. The entire ability to sell an ad-edit ratio of 75 percent which was needed to qualify for printed distribution by second class mail – yet another buggy whip in a digital era was based on this deliberate ignorance. Ad agencies and publications alike knew that many — even most — advertising dollars were simply wasted, but it wasn’t in their interest to admit that, so they didn’t.

Contrast this to pay-per-click, which is brutally honest, where every successful ad has efficacy and advertisers have a pretty darned good idea what they are getting for their money. This reality is precisely why ad-supported magazines, newspapers, and television are losing revenue. It is a trend that is likely to continue, and can only result in a degradation of production standards on the print side to match the reduced revenue potential of the online business, where BS gives way to measurable, though impoverished, results.

via I, Cringely » Blog Archive » Apple and the Future of Publishing – Part One – Cringely on technology.

At MyMindshare.NET I have created Websites for Non-Techies, which is a simple web site service for those who are technically challenged.

If you know anybody who needs a web site, but doesn’t know how to go about it, send them to MyMindshare.net.

So as I lift my head up out of code and enter the world to market MyMindshare, I am finding many strange places and events. One of those places/events is called “network marketing.” Thanks to my membership in Meetup.com, I am getting plenty of invites to network marketing meetings.

I have been to two such meetings. The first was in a swank hotel conference room, and the second was at the Beverly Hills Country Club, which is not in Beverly Hills, and would be better described as a tennis club. But I digress.

The second meeting was put on by CEO Space, and the main reason that I am writing this is to give a link to this review of CEO Space, which sounds like a fair assessment.

Here is what I’m learning about network marketing, so far:

1. The purpose of the meeting is to sell a product/service, not just to do networking.
2. That’s OK, since they have gone to the trouble of organizing the meeting, including booking the space and providing refreshments.
3. The people who found the organization that is the subject of the meeting are VERY slick/suave/charismatic. The followers/members less so.
4. The product/service is of dubious value.
5. I have learned how to network at these meetings.

I look forward to going to more of these meetings. For some reason I find them interesting. The key is to leave my wallet at home. Please stop me if I ever come back from one of these meetings all glassy-eyed and enthusiastic. That would be the kiss of death.

Homage to Craigslist:

This video comes via Seth’s Blog, and it is a terrific illustration of network effects, power laws and cascades.

It is a perfect illustration of where MyMindshare is currently at — the crazy shirtless guy. Seth says the important guy is the third guy that joins the dance. The third guy is the tipping point between a bunch a crazy guys dancing to a whole crowd of dancers.

Help us find our third guy.

When you incorporate your business, it’s a little like shouting out your email address at a spammers convention. You end up on a lot of sordid mailing lists.

One of those sordid lists is the “Office of the Compliance Recorder” which appears to be an official government agency, but it is not.

When you are incorporated, there are a variety of fees that have to be paid to various federal, state and local government agencies — so many that it is very easy to lose track of who and what you are supposed to pay. Then when you get an invoice or some notice to pay, it takes time and effort to figure out what it is and what it is for. The folks at the “Office of the Compliance Recorder” try to take advantage of naivete and bureaucratic exhaustion by sending a very official-looking form to corporations (which more often than not fall in the mom-and-pop category of businesses) that says you should comply with the law and, by the way, send them $150.00.

This scam is probably best documented on an obscure blog called Hinessite (based on my cursory Google search. I really don’t want to spend a lot of time on this).

I’m taking the time to post about this because it looks like Hinessite is getting dated, and people need to know about this.

UPDATE: There is better documentation of the scam at a site called Tipstrs. Their scam is in Colorado, but the form is nearly identical. Here is what the state of Colorado has to say on the subject: http://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/business/update01_29_09.htm

Here are the details of the document they sent me:

Office of the Compliance Recorder
P.O. Box 91240
Los Angeles, CA 90009-1240

Annual Minutes Disclosure Statement
Control Number: 101825
Customer Service Unit: 1-888-325-1414

UPDATE:

I called the “Customer Service Unit” and someone in a call center did answer, but he couldn’t give me any information. I encourage anyone/everyone to call them to get more info about their business practices.