The printed word has always had a certain 'weight' to it, a certain believability because it is in print. In English Common Law there is even some legal backing for the written document. A document presented in a court case is said to 'speak for itself' and in a court case a witness or lawyer is seldom allowed to explain the contents of the document to the court if the document is an exhibit.
|
"Sadly newbies find it very hard to discern what is true and what is not." |
The objection that 'the document speaks for itself' is invariably upheld so you can see that even in law the written word has a certain level of believability that may not be given to the spoken word.
The man in the street is even more accepting of the written word. If it appears in print then it must be true regardless of whether it appears in a book or a newspaper. It's in print, right before our eyes in solid form therefore it must be true.
Since the Internet became available to the common man, the amount of written information has just soared into the stratosphere.
Before the Internet, it was difficult for the man in the street to get his thoughts and ideas into print and in front of the world. In some respects that was not a good situation because it was often only the wealthy or the elite who could afford to publish their work or their thoughts. Most of the garbage was filtered out and never saw the light of day.
Today there is no expense for the man in the street. Free web space on places like Geocities means that anyone can get their work in front of a world-wide audience. That's good because now the common man can be heard but unfortunately there are no filters in place anymore. There is a lot of garbage being published every day which carries the weight of the printed word.
What might be totally unbelievable if spoken now appears in print where it is much more believable.
What has all that got to do with us as webmasters? A great deal because we are now exposed to just as much garbage as the man in the street. Disinformation and misinformation is everywhere and it is portrayed as the gospel truth. It appears in written form so it carries the weight of the written word.
A lot of this garbage appears on webmaster boards. 'Experts' are everywhere and have an opinion about everything and are prepared to post their knowledge for all to see. However, just because garbage appears in writing doesn't make it's valuable. Sadly newbies find it very hard to discern what is true and what is not.
In the last couple of days I have been watching a couple of knowledgeable webmasters trying to fight a flood of misinformation that was appearing on another board far removed from this one. In the end they gave up when they were shouted down for being ignorant and old-fashioned in their approach to making money in this industry. Many people there were prepared to believe rubbish simply because it appeared in print. If somebody had presented that misinformation verbally no-one would have believed them because it was just so obviously untrue.
I suppose the obvious problem for many of us is to know who to believe and who to ignore. How can you pick the gold nuggets out of the flood of crap that pours onto the net each day?
The very first thing to do is to look at what you are reading and measure it up to your own experience. If you have no experience of what you are reading then go searching for what other Webmasters have said about the same subject. Never accept something as the truth without testing it first.
Untitled Page
Do further research on the topic. If you are a newbie and you don't know whether to believe what you have read or not then go and research the topic. Look at what has been said about it on other newbie boards, ask questions to any experienced webmasters as you can. Test what has been said and don't just accept it because it is in front of you in writing.
Look at the problem from everyone's point of view. One example that I mentioned earlier in this article involved a lot of newbies and an 'expert' who said that because of his experience he could assure you that your galleries would be accepted by all TGPs and be highly profitable if they were 'clean'. In other words, avoid of a lot of text that did nothing but promote the sponsor.
Of course he was right. TGPs love clean galleries because galleries that are full of advertising compete with the TGP owners' advertising which is something a TGP owner would rather avoid. Listing clean galleries will also attract bookmarkers to the TGP and that is another thing that TGPs strive to do. What is the point of getting your gallery accepted if it is so clean that it isn't going to make sales?
When you consider something from various angles you begin to see whether the information is good or worthless.
Never ever just follow blindly because in this day and age a person can become an 'expert' in the time it takes to upload something to his free host. Don't be afraid to ask for proof or examples. A couple of weeks ago I saw a guy on another board say that he had a guaranteed method of getting "page one" listings on Google. His sales pitch started to fall into a heap when a few Webmasters asked for examples, which he could not produce. It was entirely unclear if he had any pages listed on Google at all for that matter.
In this business people are not necessarily going to lead you by the hand. It is up to you to work out who is telling the truth and who is not. Gain the ability to figure things out early the game and your business will prosper.