I know many Active Rain members read, follow and admire Seth Godin.
And many Active Rain members know Mary McKnight from right here in the rain; and they read, follow, and admire Mary as well.
Mary has started a new marketing info blog Sacrilicious Marketing ... That's Sacrilicious as in Delicious.
It seems Mary and Seth got into a little "exchange" over Mary posting some opinions about SEO in Seth's new Triibes community. Here is Mary's post that started it.
What do I think?
I think Seth is very bright and very good, in fact he's so bright and so good, it gets a little tiresome. Sorry, Seth. :-)
In the past, I have had mixed feelings about some of the SEO techniques that Mary employs.
But the girl's got attitude. I gotta love attitude. You go, Mary!!
Cheryl I hadn't read the exchange yet. I've been meaning to get over there all weekend. Now you have piqued my interest. I have a great deal of respect for both.
Cheryl, I am a little slow. I thought Triiibes was closed and by invitation only. Can outsiders post? I'm going to follow your links and see what is going on. I will send her over here to check this out (but I have to have a little more fun first). My wife had the nerve to set off his Google Alerts on purpose. Sent him an e-mailing explaining it all and Seth responded back too. Amazing! Gotta love her. She's crazy about her friends and will bungee jump into the unknown just to see what's out there and how far she can go. Relentless bugger. Now she's trying to get me to take some Type E test. What the hell is it? (LOL).
M: Yes, Triibes is closed, and I am figuring that Mary had, in fact, been offcially invited. I guess she might now be univited? :-)
And Mary, if you are reading this, I'd ditch the justified text alignment on the blog, the resultant funny spacing between words is one of my pet peeves. I much prefer jagged right columns ..... :-)
I left her a comment, but I have no idea if it is being moderated or not because it did not appear.
After reading the post, it appears to me that she was actually engaged in what he espouses in his new audio book. Surely the man can see the irony in that? I think if she gets kicked out it will be because all of his e-mails are confidential and specifically prohibit being re-published, especially in a blog. IMHO she possibly gave him grounds for removal by violating the confidentiality factor rather than being a dissenting voice. Bummer, because I thought the post was hilarious.
I hope he lets her stay and I hope she understands the value of being in a small, by invitation only forum.
My wife places a lot of value on her invitations and so I guess I can understand Seth placing a value on his. She even lets me send them out once in a while, which can be fun. I'm hardly here, so I don't interact much, just peek in once in a while. Her way of getting me involved maybe?
One last thought before I go: The flip side is that maybe she means to get herself kicked out for the notoriety of challenging him. It would certainly give her lots to blog about...
Hey Cheryl,
No, I am still an active member of Triiibes. I like and respect Seth but I feel his views on SEO are wrong and since I don't have a kiss ass bone in my body, I thought I'd debate the issue with him - it was cool to have that kind of discourse with him and i also think it was important to share it with everyone. Hope ya'll enjoyed the new site.
-Mary
Mary: I do enjoy the new site. Cool, edgy, sexy. It rocks.
M: I've had ringside seats at some memorable blogwars. Nothin' like a good food fight. :-)
I must admit, it does appear to be very interesting. I will check back and see how this develops.
Hey Cher, great post. Very interesting, indeed... Nice of Mary to stop by. Did read her blog post but didn't leave a comment. I may hang out here for a while and see where this goes. :-)
Eh. I'm on Seth's side on this one. Not for correcting the "spelling" error (I'll give Mary a gold star for research) but rather for the spat at its essence. Hey, it's Seth's blog. He has a vision for it. He also has a more fundamental philosophy around being noticed for being outstanding and not necessarily because you hit all the keywords right.
Yes, I can see Mary's view. A Tribe is a Tribe is a Tribe. The KKK is a "tribe". Neo-nazis are a "tribe". If I had a tribal Blog and wanted to keep those "tribes" off, I should be able to. (...and I realized SEO gurus are not fantatic and violent extremists but they do have "attitude".)
It's kind like why there is a delete link that you can click if you don't like this comment or why AR can kick people off for being out of line.
ROFLMAO - leave it to Mary - I love it and just got to add a cool Sacrilicious Marketing blog to my daily reading habit.
Cheryl: I know many people really like Seth's stuff... although I have never joined his parade. I know Mary can be pretty "firm in her convictions"... and I am guessing that however their "split" happened... it is probably similar to having a basketball team with two Michael Jordan superstars on it. Two stars, one ball... often not a good plan.