image courtesy of Flickr user, Brian Solis
Sarah Lacy is a successful tech journalist. So successful in fact, Sarah Lacy is more than a journalist, she’s a brand. Yet, she’s not convinced that being a brand is all that great.
I’ve written before that one of the advantages of the Internet– the relatively low barrier to click on something– is an advantage for building brands and gaining distribution online, but it’s also a disadvantage. People flock to you as a side-show, but don’t actually want to invest real dollars to support whatever you are doing. Honestly, how many of Tila Tequila’s million MySpace friends buy her CDs? There’s a currency in mild watching-a-train-wreck-fascination and even hate online, that doesn’t exist in the offline world in the same way. And, to date, it hasn’t translated.
I’ve got an inkling that this multi-year trend towards brand-this and brand-that in the business world may be in for a rude awakening. After all, there are far more high-profile examples. Think about Howard Stern: He used to be one of the most talked about, most hated, most beloved people in popular culture.
Valleywag asks, “What is wrong with you internet people? Sarah Lacy is working hard so you can fully appreciate her and you’re not FULLY APPRECIATING HER IN ALL MEDIA CONSTANTLY.”
Lacy writes a biweekly column for BusinessWeek.com called “Valley Girl” and is co-host of Yahoo! Finance’s Tech Ticker. She also has a new book out: Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0.
On a personal note, my brand is not here at this scrapbook site. It’s at AdPulp. My intention from the beginning was to create something bigger than just me. I suppose that’s the difference in being a writer versus a writer, editor and publisher.