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In real estate, location is everything, right? Put your business on the right street and you could make a killing. Put it in a dumpy neighborhood and you could be closed in six months.

The Internet’s not all that much different.

I’ve been in the Internet business a long time. Longer than Facebook. Longer even than Google or YouTube. I make a decent living helping clients use the Internet to promote themselves, better serve their customers and keep their own doors open. It’s a vocation I enjoy. One thing I’ve learned? The whole Internet is a dumpy neighborhood.

That’s right. I said it. The whole Internet is that dumpy neighborhood. It’s filled with perverts, lurkers, sleaze balls, snake-oil salesmen and worse. And more than that? There are way more people there who don’t want your product than there are who do — hundreds and hundreds of millions of people who want absolutely nothing to do with whatever you’re selling.

People love the idea of doing business on the Internet, because opening a storefront there seems like opening a storefront on the busiest street in the city. But it isn’t. It’s more like opening a storefront on the Autobahn, where the vast majority of the traffic is flying by, and nobody stops unless their car breaks down or they need to take an emergency bathroom break.

If we continue to torture this metaphor, I’m sure our search engine optimization friends will say that’s exactly what SEO is for…it’s like a road map, telling drivers exactly where to go to find what they’re looking for. And perhaps they’re right.

But as I tell my clients, think about your own shopping habits. When you go shopping, do you bring a map, drive around town and hope you find what you’re looking for? Or do you head to the mall and know exactly what stores you like? Do you pop into every store on Main Street, or do you read through the Sunday circulars and know where the sales are?

I’ve been harsh on SEO in the past, primarily because in my experience the vast majority of SEO “experts” know just enough to be dangerous. And with that nugget of knowledge, they’re willing to charge a fortune — all based on promises they can’t deliver on. And while I believe websites should be search-engine friendly, I can’t stand idly by and allow good people to be taken in by the idea that generating sales online is as simple as spending money on SEO. I can promise, without hesitation, that it does not work that way.

Very few people shop blindly. They aren’t typing in some random phrase  and then buying the product from the first website they see. In fact, the vast majority of traffic — and therefore the vast majority of sales — on any website should be “direct request” — meaning someone actually typed in your name and visited on purpose.

I’ve had plenty of lively discussions on this site about the importance of drive-by traffic — the folks who google some term and stumble across a particular website. My argument is now and will forever be that this “drive-by” traffic is just that — it’s folks who were just driving by on that busy freeway. Perhaps they craned their necks as they passed, but they aren’t going to buy from you. They may even be on the wrong street.

Some of my SEO friends will tell you to take advantage of this traffic — to optimize your site so drive-by traffic becomes a profitable. But doing so is pandering to the lowest common denominator, and it isn’t serving your actual customers.

As I’ve said a thousand times: Advertise. It’s the only way to become a destination. No matter what you’re selling, make sure you’re an expert on that product. Make sure nobody knows it better than you do. Provide value and an amazing customer experience. Get people excited about supporting you. Create an ad campaign that targets your market and actively reach out to help people who could use products you’re selling.

SEO can get your address on the map, but advertising is the big billboard above the building, shouting “_____ on sale today!”

Before you spend money on anything, think about your own habits. If you aren’t excited about the way you’re marketing your business, chances are nobody else will be either. Be dynamic, incredible, and worthy of your customers. Don’t just rely on putting your business on the busiest street.

Adobe has finally come out with its official response to Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ now-famous Thoughts on Flash blog post. In reading it, one gets the sense the Adobe is very angry, but fears defending itself. Instead of the milquetoast response, Adobe should have gone point by point to counterattack Jobs’ claims.

Since Adobe won’t, I will.

1. First, there’s “Open”. Jobs says Flash is 100 percent proprietary, and therefore doesn’t fit into Apple’s version of what the Internet should be. And though Jobs admits Apple has proprietary products, he doesn’t admit that the vast majority of Apple’s products are proprietary — so proprietary, in fact, that Apple’s license agreements don’t allow users to run Apple’s operating system on anything but an Apple computer. And Apple has updated iTunes several times to keep users from synching the Palm Pre to iTunes. Jobs cannot argue that he is now or ever has been a proponent of “open.”

2. Second, there’s the “full web”. In answer to the claim that iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch users don’t get the full web, Jobs responds by ignoring the point. He says there are plenty of places to get video from, and that although Flash games aren’t playable on his devices, there are plenty of games available in Apple’s App Store. Perhaps. But he ignores the large volume of rich content residing on the web that was built in Flash. Not just videos and games, but whole websites, advertisements, photo galleries and more. On the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad, you’re barred from that content — not because it isn’t possible, but because Steve Jobs has decided it isn’t necessary.

3. Third, there’s reliability, security and performance. Jobs says Flash is full of security holes and bugs, and therefore not trustworthy. Know what else is full of security holes? Mac OSX. As was recently widely reported, Macs are more susceptible to viruses than PCs. Fortunately for Apple, market share is still so low that malware developers just don’t bother writing malicious software targeting Macs. Jobs says Flash is the number one reason Macs crash. That surprised me, particularly because I’ve heard that Macs never crash. But if we take Steve on his word, wouldn’t that make Apple partly responsible? Wouldn’t the team at Apple want to figure a way to work with the plugin and create a more stable OS?

4. Fourth, there’s battery life. Jobs says using Flash will drain batteries. Again, Jobs defaults to the video argument. Frankly, I don’t disagree that video is better served in h.264, and if that means longer battery life, all that better. But Apple could better serve its customers by allowing customers to control their own experience. If it means battery drain, so be it. The user learns something. But the bigger point — getting the full web — wouldn’t be a substantial draw on battery life. Video here is the straw man set up to redirect attention from the essential parts of the web that are missing.

5. Fifth, there’s Touch. Jobs says much of the content developed in Flash does not interact well with touch devices. For that, he blames Flash. But I believe the opposite is true. Flash was around long before the iPhone. The fact that Apple hasn’t figured out how to handle simple things like rollovers is not Adobe’s fault. In fact, it shows a huge lack of understanding about how people use the web. It isn’t the Internet’s responsibility to live up to Jobs’ vision; it’s Apple’s responsibility to deliver the content people are looking for — whether Jobs like it or not.

6. Sixth, the most important reason. Jobs says Apple won’t let iPhone and iPad developers build apps in Flash because it will lead to clunky, slow, bloated and substandard apps. And, according to Steve, it’s important to protect the user experience. In response, I’ll say that I own an iPod Touch. I use it daily. I’ve downloaded plenty of crappy apps that crash and freeze, games that nag you to buy the full version or just don’t work at all. And if Jobs wants to talk about bloated, slow, substandard apps, he needs look no further than the PC version of iTunes. Without a doubt, it is the absolute worst, clunkiest, slowest piece of software I have ever run. Ever. Even last night, it halted the download of my daily podcasts and would not resume the downloads. I couldn’t even close iTunes without using my Task Manager. The point is that Jobs is only concerned with user experience when it suits him…and it suits him in this case because his team can’t figure out how to get the iPhone to run Flash.

Bottom line: Adobe was essential to Apple’s rise from near death a decade ago. Products like Flash, Photoshop and Illustrator were (and are) considered standards for the creative class that kept Apple afloat. Apple owes it to Adobe to be more open, more cooperative, more forgiving, than perhaps it would be with any other company.

If I were running Adobe, my response would have been more simple, more direct, and have greater impact: I would announce that Adobe is no longer developing Mac OS versions of its products, because Mac OS is not open, Apple does not support the “full web” on its products, Macs are too vulnerable to security breaches, Apple’s mobile devices do not offer sufficient battery life, Apple product developers don’t understand the way users interact with the Internet, and Apple doesn’t care about user experience.

I’m sure the Windows crowd would accept that in a heartbeat.

If you need any more evidence that today’s journalism is a rudderless ship drifting about aimlessly, look no further than the reaction surrounding the recent decision to change the AP style for “Web site” to “website.” It amazed me to see the phrase “AP Stylebook” on Twitter’s trending topics, and as a former journalist who hasn’t quite washed the ink from his hands, I was curious.

My reaction to the news? So what? I yawned. I moved on.

And then I saw this. In a nutshell, Robert Niles of The Online Jounalism Review argues that journalism students need to ditch AP style and start learning SEO. Now my blood is boiling. Check out this idiocy:

The newspaper industry developed a common style, maintained by the Associated Press, to meet the communication needs of a print-based industry trying to most effectively communicate with a broad audience.

Today’s online publishers, editors and reporters need a new style that most effectively allows their words to reach their intended audiences. Unfortunately for them, the print-inspired AP style is not that. Today’s (and tomorrow’s) journalists need to learn search engine optimization [SEO] techniques as much as, if not more than their predecessors who worked the print industry needed to learn AP.

The argument is that AP style is for print; SEO is for online. And Niles argues journalists need to learn how to use SEO in their writing to help content “jump to the front of the line” in search engines. He says “good SEO can help make your pages more lucrative in keyword-targeted advertising systems, such as Google’s AdWords.” None of that has anything to do with journalism, and it absolutely shouldn’t. Ever.

AP style is an attempt to find a common, understandable language amongst members of the news industry. It sets rules so there’s a degree of sameness in language from one writer to the next. It allows for an authoritative voice that denotes a particular discipline. As such, it is extremely necessary. And not just for print. Even online, a website that doesn’t follow a consistent style is uncomfortable to read. Some readers may not pick up on why, but inconsistent capitalization, punctuation and language are disconcerting. AP style eliminates that.

As for Niles’ argument about SEO? It’s bunk.

A true journalist reports the truth, and should never never think of profit. Following Niles’ advice amounts to creating advertorial content. It’s slimy, dishonest and chips away at the pillars of what journalism should be.

One need look no further than Gizmodo’s recent series of stories about the next-gen iPhone to see why creating performance-based content is a bad thing. According to Gawker Media owner Nick Denton, Gizmodo reporters are paid “traffic bonuses” for their stories, and the reporters who broke the story about the next-gen iPhone stand to make a decent heap of cash for essentially buying property considered stolen under California law. That’s not good journalism. But it did quadruple the number of visitors to Gizmodo.

Reportage for the greater good and solid writing will get attention. And it’s worthwhile, even if it costs you.

As a young journalist, I investigated the trouble local pantries and soup kitchens had getting food donations from a large retailer (I won’t name the company, but it happens to be the largest retailer in the world). After the story ran, the retailer refused to sell the newspaper at the store. It cost the paper a considerable amount of money. But you know what else? Our local food pantries started getting donations. And due to customer demand, the paper was back on the racks there in a matter of a month.

Bottom line? Journalists need to write for people — not search engines. And if folks like Niles are the future of journalism, we’re in a lot of trouble.

With the big Apple iPad launch came a flood of reviews across the media. David Pogue loves the device. So does Walt Mossberg. Old Media are throwing themselves at the iPad as if it’s the promised savior.

For the New York Times and Popular Science, Conde Nast and the host of Old Media producers building apps, the iPad could very well be the last, best hope.

It’s no secret that newspapers and magazines are suffering from nosediving reader numbers. And nosediving reader numbers mean nosediving advertising dollars. Fewer ad dollars means less cash to pay stockholders, bloated management trees and, ultimately, journalists. And it’s less money to buy one thing these organizations have relied on since Gutenberg: paper.

Paper is a huge expense for newspapers, rivaling only salaries for the top expense at most print publications. Paper (and ink) costs can be downright crippling, but without paper, there’s no business. It’s like running a McDonald’s without frozen hamburger patties.

The iPad gives print publications the exact out they’ve been looking for: a device folks can use to flip through the pages of their favorite periodical — almost as if they’re holding the paper itself. It offers designers full control over the look of the thing, unlike the fairly typical newspaper website. It’s a wonderful way to print a newspaper or magazine without using paper. Brilliant. Newspapers could actually charge a whole lot less for their products and still make enough to pay the bills. And then some.

But the Internet is already an excellent platform for publishing. Heck, I do it myself whenever I get the chance. It’s cheap, reaches a vast audience, and publishing is immediate. So why are publishers so eager to put in the time and expense to join the iPad bandwagon?

Control.

Newspapers, by and large, hate the free Internet. Believe me on this. I’ve sat through the conferences and the seminars. Even now, publishers are confused and frightened about cannibalizing their print content, working too hard to generate added-value online content and how to handle the comment sections of their sites.

It’s that last one that really sticks in their craws.

In the pre-Internet days, it was easy to moderate public opinion. An editor just decided which letters to print and which to leave out. These days, it’s not so easy. Commenters and trolls say whatever they want, whenever they want. And thanks to the Safe Harbor rules, newspapers can’t do much about it, other than automatic filtering.

The iPad brings back  those halcyon days when the editor decided everything. That’s because the iPad is about consumption, not interaction. It’s a device for consuming media — not creating it.

I’m not saying that’s an entirely bad thing. I am saying it’s a potentially dangerous thing.

See, we count on our newspapers and magazines to be our watchdogs. But who watches the newspapers? Who calls these outlets out when there’s conflicts of interest, shoddy journalism or outright lies? For the past 10 years, bloggers and commenters have been serving that function. We’ve held journalism to a higher standard than journalists hold themselves to. And that’s a very good thing.

In a matter of a couple of weeks, Conan O’Brien has managed to cause a huge stir, just by signing up for a Twitter account. He’s already up to 670,000 followers, and doesn’t seem to be slowing down.

I can understand why he’s got so many followers; the guy’s already got fans, and they’re dying to know where he’s going to end up. The question is, does Conan actually use Twitter? I’m gonna go ahead and say no. Why? Because he only follows one person. Just one. I find it doubtful that Conan takes a look at his Twitter feed just to see updates from Sarah Killen (no offense, Sarah).

Perhaps he logs in and takes a look at trending topics. It wouldn’t surprise me to find that he searches for Conan references. But he’s certainly not using Twitter to discuss anything. He’s not engaged in it; he’s just posting little nuggets when he feels like it.

That’s fine, if you’re Conan O’Brien. Or Oprah. Or even Kevin Rose. But what about the rest of us?

Do you feel like you’re tweeting into a void? Do you post questions that don’t get answers? Do you respond to people and never hear back?

That’s okay. Me too.

I’m by no means a Twitter rock star. I have a couple hundred followers, and generally I follow back. That’s just my MO. I’m always hopeful that if you’re following me, we’ll share some common interests, so I’ll give you a shot. Sometimes I look at your timeline first. If it’s filled with porn or inane comments about your lunch, I’m probably going to take a pass. I try to be “social.” I’ll respond when I’m inclined. Unless I get super busy I skim my entire timeline every day. But what I’ve noticed is there are literally a handful of people who will actually “converse” with me. Some of them I know in real life; some only through Twitter. And here’s the thing: The more followers/followees a person has, the less likely they are to respond to you.

Duh, right? Of course, they just might not see your response. They’re popular! They follow a lot of people! They probably have so many responses they couldn’t possibly get to yours too!

Nah. Look, it’s easy enough to get all your @s. And if you aren’t responding, what are you doing?

Fake following. It’s impossible to follow 10,000 people on Twitter. Impossible. It’s not only impossible, but impractical. If you were to try it wouldn’t be fun.

The biggest perpetrators of fake following are “social media experts” and salespeople (sometimes — often — they’re the same). They’re the ones telling you how to get 10,000 followers in two weeks. They’re the ones telling you to hire them to boost your social media presence, because hey!, they’ve got a LOT of followers!

What they count on is that you won’t see how many people they’re following. And that number is usually astronomical, because they’re the types who randomly follow 100 or 1000 people at a time and just see how many followbacks they get.  And then they mistake their follower numbers as “authority” or “influence,” which means they can spam you to death with their blog posts — or just use your status as a follower to prove their own popularity.

Here’s my advice: Be careful out there. Don’t ruin your own Twitter experience by getting caught up in the numbers game. It’s not really about how many people are following you, but about how many people care about what you have to say. It’s not about how many people you follow, but how many people say things that interest you. Keep it legit, and everything will fall into place.

Some great articles on this point:
Hypocritical Mass: The Big Lie About Twitter
Twitter Zombies
Words of, uh wisdom: How to score more Twitter followers

And to keep up with me, subscribe to my blog or follow me on Twitter. Lol.