DISQUS

I guess that my first note would be that his title "Advertising is failure" could be a dissertation unto itself, but is at the same time a great start for generating interest, talk, links, etc.

I believe this is really a matter of definition in that a passionate entrepreneur, salesperson, developer, etc could easily say that a product sells itself if they believe so fully in what they have to offer that they never feel like they have to advertise it, but instead, they simply inform about it.

When I worked for New Balance, I essentially felt the same way. I rarely thought that I was selling or advertising. I truly believed the products sold themselves to the people that really needed them because we catered very well to certain types of customers. For the others, I was happy if we could match them up with something that worked, but as long as we satisfied our core demographic, advertising (at least the way I thought of it at the time) was not necessary.

In my opinion, a site's kernel should be evident on every page. To me, it shouldn't matter what page visitors first land on. They should easily be able to get a sense of what they entire site is about. If they want to read more in depth without having to go through every post, they can (and hopefully will) read the About page.

On every page, visitors to my site can see the kernel "Self-Promotion for Smart People."