Darwin, Cyberspace, and Oprah’s Book Club
Note from Ian: Jade is senior copywriter and creative lead at my company. Like me, she often wonders if we should take people’s internet connections away…
If author Francis Bellamy* lived today, the Pledge of Allegiance would probably be changed to read “and flickr and facebook for all.” Indeed, every time you sigh, fifty-six thousand shiny new podcasts, blogs and social networking sites make their proud launch into our web 2.0 world. As a result, gracious, intelligent and useful online content is scarce, buried ten-fold by Zombocom and “Are You Hot?” quizzes. Such e-galitianism begs the question: what’s a true internet nerd to do?
Off the cuff, things look grim for geeks, once distinguished by their internet savvy and umm, nothing else. Not to worry, my meta-friends. I believe the renaissance of a civilized, intelligent internet continent, as navigated by the true masters of the online experience, is imminent-all we need is a little Cyber Darwinism. What am I talking about? Basically that, in the internet, as in life, things obviously really aren’t created equal (phew). And it’s only a matter of time before the fittest override the quotidian.

Case in point: Google Analytics Authorized Consultants (GAAC). Like Oprah’s Book Club for internet marketing, the Head Google looked up from its lofty perch one day and noticed something was amiss. Sick of the fast-and-spurious internet peddling that was tainting the preferred pastimes of both professional and amateur nerds alike, Google Analytics rightly saw the need to temper liberty with a healthy splash of civility restored The result: The Google Preferred Partnership Program, an elite, reasoned alliance in which applicants must prove their muster to be able to qualify into the hallowed leagues of industry superiority.
And the world is a better place because of it. The nattering internet novices out there may call this snobbery, but to the web junkies of the world, it’s nothing short of salvation.
Precisely because the internet has gone so 2.0, someone needs to be able to separate the high cyberspace from the prevalent internet dregs. And all the true online aficionados who spend hours slogging through Google Alerts, feedburners and filters to try and find a nugget of value will be the first to pledge allegiance to a powerful voice with similar views to do it for us.
Oprah’s one. Google Analytics is one. For my entertainment, I swear by Buzzsugar, and for politics I’m 100% Huffington Post.
My point? In our current world, internet liberty has been doled out way too liberally; authoritative seals of approval are the anecdote to that subsequent mediocrity. My company just got GAAC approved, not simply because we work in internet marketing, but because we’re better at it than you are, and people deserve to know that. God Bless Darwin. Long live better practices’ online marketing.
*Francis Bellamy was a marketer too! He originally wrote the Pledge of Allegiance as part of an ad campaign for Columbus Day flags.