What drew my attention to marketing 2.0s “stupidity” is a provocative, albeit interesting post by Noah Kagan (via Cameron Olthius ). The post outlined the Top 5 Stupid Trends of Marketing 2.0 with sufficient rebuttal from Cameron.

Here’s my take:

1- Our product is Viral & 3- You need a blog.
Noah’s kinda right. Not all products are created equal and ergo not all products are viral. However the fact remains that viral marketing or the social collaboration software that spawned it, is by far the greatest outcome of this entire (for lack of a better word) web 2.0 evolution.

By the same rational, not all companies need a blog. However, I don’t see any better way for a company to connect with its core target audience (read prospects and customers) than with a blog. It could be used as a link connecting users across the various stages of the sales cycle. So, a prospect can connect with a customer and vice versa. It also adds an aura of genuineness & credibility to the company and implies reciprocal trust from the consumer.

2- Paying $10,000 to advertise on TechCrunch for a month.
Noah’s probably right. $10,000 for a month, seems steep by any magazine’s standards. TechCrunch is inching towards a feed readership of 100,000. Comparatively a visitor and tourism guide with average circulation of 100,000 and combined circulation of 800,000 charge $6600 for a full page back cover. However, let’s not forget that TechCrunch may afford the opportunity to target your most coveted tech-savvy core audience and therefore commands a higher price.

4- Digg will save us.
Noah’s right. Digg cannot save you, nor can TechCrunch, not even MySpace, if you have a terrible product. Viral Marketing, Community Marketing, and Customer Evangelism necessitates a killer product and if you don’t have that, I’d recommend focusing your resources on upgrading before further spending your ad dollars.

5- Oh don’t worry, we have a MySpace Badge.
Noah’s right, but I am confused. I don’t quite get how a MySpace Badge or widgets can work wonders (although Cameron provides a few examples) but the cause of my befuddlement is that Noah himself advocates the use of MySpace Badges in an earlier Top 5 post of his (Thanks, Ryo).

All contradiction aside, what do you (Noah as well as all readers) think, are the Top 5 Smart Trends of Marketing 2.0? Mack (Viral Garden), any thoughts?
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In completely unrelated news: I wanted to announce my affirmation that Ze Frank is Ze Real Deal when it comes to vlogging. Here’s why I think his show rocks:

…because it’s easy-to-watch, insanely witty, satirical, musical, hilarious, Seinfeldian and really, really, really ridiculously smart (any way, I’ve run out of words). And all this he does without batting an eyelid. Simply put, Ze is ze Jon Stewart of the blogosphere (or is it called the vlogosphere now?).

Case in point: Watch as Ze and Jon dissect the same issue in their own inimitable styles.