Before the advent of online news and entertainment, advertising and its cousin, public relations, were like pornography: You generally knew it when you saw it.

But with the ever-increasing torrent of Internet “content” splashed across the Web, much of it not only corporate-sponsored but corporate-created, sussing the actual message from this medium gets pretty tricky. So how do you spot Native Advertising? Maybe this John Oliver video helps:

This trend toward dressing (some would say disguising) advertising and public relations as news is driven by economics. A standard press release costs only a few hundred dollars to compose and distribute electronically, making the Net a low-cost distribution channel.

Content-hungry publishers, in turn, can generate fresh text fast and cheap by just forwarding the corporate handouts. ScreamingMedia, ad guru Jay Chiat’s content consulting company, estimates that companies with a significant online presence could spend as much as $500,000 per month generating their own content. The price of news sites for most PR content? Free.

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In my continuing discussion of success in work from home careers today I want to cover the power of reflection. The Slight Edge philosophy focuses on ‘the now’, about realizing there is only ever really now. The choices we make in each moment are what lead to the path of success.

How to reflect on your  business

Reflection is about using the results you have been getting, taking time out to look at them on a daily basis, and then seeing if your home Internet business is heading towards success.

The key is to remember to avoid dwelling on the past. Take my cousin Miriam, she has no high school diploma and instead of taking the GED test she still complains about low income. There are many really good websites that offer GED practice tests and online classes free of charge so there are no excuses for complaints.

If you use reflection that fact you did something wrong several times means you can learn. In fact, you have learned, you have learned several things to change. You then have the power to choose to change the actions you take and reflect again. This is a continuous improvement process, ‘plan, do. review’.

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Years ago, the owner of a New York department store said that half of the advertising dollars he spent annually were wasted. He said his problem was that he didn’t know which half. The following video tells you more about the basics of advertising:

Today there is good reason to believe the wasted portion is what a company spends on the creation and production of advertising. We Americans, exposed to millions of dollars worth of advertising daily, hardly remember even the most recent ad we’ve seen.

National audience research annually lists a “Top Ten” of stand-out ads – consigning all the others to unmemorable oblivion. In other words, good ads are one in a million.

Is it that bad? Why does advertising clutter the landscape and abuse our eyes and ears like a pack of screaming monkeys?

We think it is because there is, in place, all across the country, from local media and agencies in historical Merced in California to New York and Los Angeles conglomerates, a generation of advertising professionals that neglected to learn the basic structure of salesmanship and storytelling in advertising.

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