I recently noticed a friend of mine broadcasting that ‘At the moment, Charles is eating rice' - I've not been that fascinated since the days of televised chess.

But it's harmless enough isn't it? In a society witnessing the steady decline of community is it nothing more than a garden wall, over which to comment on Doreen at number 43's washing?

It's bringing people together, but it does cause us something of a problem. It means that our customers are all over the place; it's like trying to understand the movements of a swarm of drunken wasps - when they're not Facebooking they're  Myspacing, Beboing, Twittering, foruming, blogging and ding dang doodle doing.

And so onto this week's sizzling topic, internet marketing.

In the days of the steam powered print shop, it was easy enough - we're selling workwear, so we'll take some photos of a toothless goon in a hard hat, knock up some brochures and bang them out to all the local businesses. They get a phone call, and then our rep appears, puts a fag out in reception and talks about reinforced gussets and the size of his ruler pocket. But then along came the internet and it wasn't so straightforward, especially for us ink jockeys, still convinced that microwaves were created by witchcraft.

But it seemed like if you got in there early, had yourself a few key words, chucked in a little pay per click and some fresh relevant content you were in with a shout. There was the odd clown who thought that the quick route to a million inbound links was to collaborate with sites like ‘Big Floppy Whoppers,' and ‘Debbie Does Doncaster', but Google took a dim view of that kind of jiggerypokery and booted them off.

The internet however is in constant flux, and a new environment that the IT Wallers call Web 2.0 emerged. Clearly, I understand this as well as the wiring diagram for the Hubble Telescope, but let's try and touch on a few features of this ethereal dimension.

Blogs - they consist of short and often mundane articles on anything from pencil sharpening to squirrel hunting, but if the blog is integral to your site (and not the usual off the shelf bolt on jobbie) and it's full of relevant constantly up-dating text, the search engines will love you apparently.

Social networks - we've already touched on these - Myspace, Bebo, and yes, yes, yes, I've got a Facebook account...there, happy now? Clearly I don't understand why they work, but in the space of a few weeks of setting up a Twitter account (I'm going to own up to my shoe fetish at this rate of honesty) we seem to be attracting large amounts of what I'll loosely call interest. Baffled as to why they work, I've just called a bloke from a company half amusingly called the Three Marketeers - he should have stuck to wearing frilly shirts and sword fighting, he sounded more baffled than me - thanks for that Porthos.

Applications and Widgets - looks like you create a really useless tool, like the ability to take a photograph of yourself and change the size of your hooter, make it available in the most crowded internet shipping lanes, and it'll get picked up by loads of people who then somehow end up linked back to your site. The more fun it is, I guess the further and wider it'll spread.

Which takes us onto viral proliferation - nothing to do with washing your hands after you've been for a jimmy. This is the dream scenario where you just put stuff out there; could be an application as above, or that hilarious youtube video of the mother in law attempting the Pamplona bull run, in flip flops - but it will be picked up and endlessly passed on around the world, creating a snowball that could soothe the fires of Satan's harris. In a strange and wholly new sense you could be marketing to the most internet active people who aren't your ideal customers, but who will get you the most coverage. This gets you the most links, up the rankings you go like a rat up the proverbial, and then your real customers are more likely to see you - upside down enough for you?

Sounds easier than a nurse on pay day (that's the death warrant signed right there) but the fact that there are big dollars an hour companies specializing in the smoke and mirrors of Web 2.0, leads me to believe that like a nurse on pay day, it's all a lot more complicated, delicate, intelligent, hard working, under valued, unnervingly beautiful and downright marvellous (am I off the hook yet?) than we are led to believe.

We've no choice, we must do battle with the above - if it all seems a hideous fog take heart though, because coming your way soon, yep, you guessed it, Web 3.0. Before you straddle a large rocket and hit the ‘launch' button, I suspect that this will all be a bit more predictable. Look out for BT collecting everyone's surfing habits and flogging them to us, so we can target our customers more clearly etc, and so on, for example. Doesn't mean I want it though - I'd swap the lot for a late 50s' P4 Rover, a stout pair of Grandsons, a puff on the old burr walnut and a time before technology. And so if you'll permit me the indulgence, I shall leave you in the capable hands of Rupert Chawner Brooke, and a small slice of old England...

Say, is there Beauty yet to find?
And Certainty? and Quiet kind?
Deep meadows yet, for to forget
The lies, and truths, and pain? . . . oh! yet
Stands the Church clock at ten to three?
And is there honey still for tea?

Cheers,

Paul

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