I recently received my invitation to have a look at Michael Arrington's Edgeio, and I really don't like it. I've mentioned before that I think that the whole classifieds space is not the best utilization of the web, and not an exciting space, but their are other reasons:

1. The Name: Edgeio is the second worst named site on the net, the first is edge.io, which apparently was dropped before Arrington started hyping this thing.

2. The Real TechCrunch Motive: It's pretty clear that all along TechCrunch was meant solely as a marketing tool for edgeio, Arrington has developed legions of fans who are now willing to praise anything that he touches, which has meant a lot of hype over something that's not that great.

3. It's lack of usability for the mainstream: this is not something that anyone without a blog is even able to use. I don't think that the Edgeio gang did their homework on this one. I would like to see data on the number of ebay sellers that are also bloggers, or at least rough data on the percentage of bloggers that are involved in ecommerce.

4. Tagging: Not only do you have to blog, you also have to know how to use tags. Not hard, but most don't use them, and tagging makes this such an easy target for copying. As I understand it, Edgeio is going to aggregate all blogs that have the tag "listing" and then organize them and present them on the Edgeio site. Why couldn't another scrape site do the same thing? Why couldn't ebay do this? They can and if it catches on they will. Worst of al for Edgeio, they'll do it right before the model hits the mainstream, so that their users don't have to switch.

Those are my main problems with the site, and I haven't even mentioned the potential to be bogged down with spam.

What I do like: The design, it is a great looking site. I also like that Edgeio is taking a chance, and is making blogs a little more useful. Of course, at the risk of sounding like Levar Burton, don't take my word for it, try it out yourself.

I saw the Pontiac ad that ends with "Google Pontiac to find out more," so I thought I'd give it a shot. It reminds me a little of old ads that would say "check out AOL keyword: Pontiac," but this is different on many levels.

Here's what I was expecting:

• A Pontiac Advertisement at the top of the SERP
• A unique URL for the ad
• A slew of advertisers bidding for the keyword Pontiac

What I found: pretty much exactly what I was expecting. So why would Pontiac do this? At first glance it seems as if they are paying for two ads when all they need is one. Now they're paying for the TV ad and the click, when they could have just flashed visit pontiac.com for more.

So what's the point of this; I have a couple of ideas:

1. Tracking: Pontiac is likely counting on people clicking on the ad not the basic results listing. If you click on the ad you're taken to a URL along the lines of poniac.com/index.jsp?seo=goo. When I advertise through AdWords, I usually do the same thing, I take the clicker to a URL like Lopico.com/G (it's not up so don't bother).

Very effective but wouldn't a URL in the TV ad such as poniac.com/newcars do the same thing, or a different URL altogether such as thenewpontiac.com? Probably not. If your shown an ad on TV and it has a URL, in the few instances when the viewer does go to the url they probably won't enter anything after the .com. It's also likely that for many by the time they switch from watching TV to surfing the net (hurry up IP TV), they've forgotten the URL and just resort to Googling, Yahooing, MSNing, or Asking their good pal Jeeves.

This was really a great understanding of Consumer Behavior by Pontiac, and if you've got the budget for both ads (I'm sure laid off GM employees enjoy such spending) then why not.

2: First Mover Advantage: It's likely that others will copy Pontiac, but none will be as successful (speaking solely in terms of driving traffic), because it will lack the newness of this campaign.

Along with the reasoning, I think this raises a couple of issues:

1. Is this within AdWords TOS? I know that you're not allowed to encourage people to click on ads on your site, so why should be allowed to encourage clicking on ads on Google? I guess the difference is that Google is the company benefiting, and the advertiser is fully aware of the clicking because they are the one encouraging it. But, somehow it doesn't seem right.

2. Google Bombing: I just hope this doesn't happen. To find out more about Google Bombing, Google Google Bombing.

The Quote:

"Why should they be allowed to use my pipes? The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment, and for a Google or Yahoo! or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts!"

The way I understand it is this:

Telecoms and other ISPs have the users that Content Providers need, ISPs therefore think that they should be able to charge the CPs for access to the users. Essentially if you want our customers you're going to have to pay.

The rationale behind this is flawed however. The power is with the CPs not the ISPs. If an ISP tries to create a walled garden in which only sites that are paying the ISP get included, it will fail. If ISP1 is offering a limited selection of sites, the value of that connection is diminished. Especially, if ISP2 (say an ISP created by Google) allows access to all sites on the internet. Thus unless the ISP can establish a monopoly (which it can't) it will fail because it is offering an inferior product.

As the web stands currently ISPs (typically) are not paying content providers and content providers (typically) are not paying ISPs. This is the way it should be. Yes, ISPs do bring value to CPs in the form of users, but without the CPs the users would not want the ISPs in the first place. AT&T is having a chicken and egg problem.

This is really a failure of AT&T to understand what their consumers want, and an example of how bad ideas can be if you think about profits first and customers second - a situation that usually leads to less profits as customers move away from your services.

A side note for AT&T: how about including a web address on your hundreds of billboards, so that potential customers can find more information and you can track the success of your campaign.

Not Long ago I subscribed to Okdork.com, it's a pretty good blog written by a facebook product manager. Not long after that, I learned about the yopos network, and entrepreneur 27. Today (and yesterday) there has been a lot circulating about the E27 Tech Symposium, which was put on in part by the previously mentioned Entrepreneur 27. I really feel bad for the people that presented at this event. I'm sure it was a great event and the people running the new startups gave great presentations, but it really has not been blogged well. The posts that I've read (which I won't mention) have really failed at generating any excitement over the ideas that were presented. I hope that you take the time to actually check these companies out, and don't read too much about them first, because it might prevent you from looking into them.

As an entrepreneur of 23, I hope all of these companies have great success. To find the companies visit Entrepreneur 27