Come in, Mister.... Quass, is it?
Yes.
Please to take a seat. Now then, what can I do for you?
I wrote you that letter, remember?
Oh, yes, of course: You're the webmaster who couldn't sell "jack squat" on the Internet. Yes. Very funny letter, by the way. "Jack squat" indeed: ha ha!
Yes, well, I just thought that, since you treat webmaster psychoses --
That's right, I am a certified (or at any rate, certifiable) psychologist, authorized to treat the many delusions and phobias to which online professionals such as yourself are increasingly susceptible these days -- although let's not jump to conclusions: yours may be a simple neurosis.
I doubt that.
Oh, really?
Google And The Mission To Map Meaning And Make Money (Paperback) Anyone with even the slightest reservations about Google's dominance in the Internet visibility game has got to love this book -- if only because it's practically the only one in existence that dares to point out the dark side to the politically correct Mountain View behemoth. Although the author credits Google founders Page and Grin with keeping their 2004 IPO out of the price-manipulating hands of the usual Enron-school Wall Street interests (in a passage that now reads presciently about the 2009 financial meltdown), he points out the inconvenient truth for the Gaga Google Generation: namely, that everything is not goodness and light when Google gets behind closed corporate doors, notwithstanding its much vaunted vow to 'do no evil'.
Yes, well, if you'd been a webmaster for 10 years and had only sold an occasional book or two through Amazon.com, then maybe you'd feel the same way!
Oh, excuse me: I didn't realize your case was that serious. Yes, my friend, you are a flaming psychopath -- virtually speaking, of course! (Helen, block all calls for the next hour: I've got a serious case in here!)
A "flaming psychopath"?
Now, don't worry: that's just a preliminary diagnosis. I'll first need to know the specifics of your online situation before I can be certain. (Besides, even if you are flat-out wacko, I've got a vast formulary of psychoactive drugs that can bring you back to your senses -- or at least cloud them so thoroughly as to render you completely indifferent to your hopeless situation.) Now then, what websites have you created over the past 10 years? (Come, come: the meter is running. $150 an hour, with a $150 minimum.)
Well, let's see: I started this Seaford, Virginia, page --
Oh, yes, I meant to ask you about that. I actually reviewed the pages in question.
Well, I haven't worked on the site in years --
Yes, but do you know what really struck me? What?
Here's a site about Seaford, Virginia -- and certainly one of the few on that subject, at least at the time that you launched your Seaford site --
Yes, yes?
And yet, oh, my man! You made no attempt whatsoever to sell Seaford-related advertisements to would-be advertisers!
Oh, that's right: I only see it now. Doctor, what is wrong with me?!
Oh, dear: It looks like you've got a variant of what we doctors like to call the "flip-flop syndrome."
"Flip-flop syndrome"?
You know, where a webmaster puts the cart before the horses by trying to "lead with content."
Well, bless me: what else should a webmaster lead with if not content?
With a service, dear boy! With a service!
But, but --
But me no buts, sir.
But --
Oh, very well!
But I thought I'd get everybody interested in Seaford stuff with my cool content and then I'd eventually come up with some funding ideas --
Thus say all "Flipfloppers"! Remember, the Field of Dreams is actually a Field of Illusions online. If you build it, they will come, all right, but then they'll pick your site clean of all useful data and leave without one word of gratitude.
Oh, doctor --
I know, I know: It's a tough lesson to learn. Hey, where are you going?!!
Sorry, doc, but I've got a website to rebuild -- complete with space for paid advertisements!
Get back here in this barcalounger at once, you psycho! Our hour isn't up yet!
Thanks for the help, but now I've got work to do!
(The idea!) You still owe me $150, you know! "Payable at time of service"!
SIGH! Criminy! Sometimes I am just too good at this psychoanalysis game. I scarcely open my mouth, and my patients are cured. It's just as well, though, since I've got a whole waiting-room full of webmasters out there this morning who are hoping to see me on a drop-in basis -- and would you believe it? Every single one of them is apparently coming in to complain about the money and time that they've lost by participating in the Google Adwords program! I'd better call the APA to report the probable existence of a new disease: "Google Adwords Syndrome" -- although it's probably just another one of the many insidious variants of DWD, "Deluded Webmaster Disorder." How ironic, considering that the Adwords program is the one and only place where I advertise these psychological services of mine!
(Helen, send in the next loser -- er, I mean the next MONEY loser -- Oh, I am terrible!) Yes, Webmaster Finley is it? Oh, bless me, why are you crying, sir?
What? You spent $3,000 on Google Adwords over the last month and only had 200 or so hits, and you actually lost money even though you did sell 30 units' worth of your inventory? Oh, buck up, man! (I hate to see a grown webmaster cry!)
