Firstly let me explain what a guru is. It is a name given to Internet marketers that have supposedly made a lot of money online, and have a group of loyal followers: their list. These are the people who get you to sign up for their newsletter offering free this and that, in return for your email address. I have been on many of these lists over the years and had added and deleted myself along the way to the point where I thought I was only getting information from the best of the best. Unfortunately I have started to notice a worsening trend over the past year or so -- the emails keep coming but the information does not.



In the beginning most of the newsletters I received had at least some good advice or an emerging trend that was of interest to me. I would get these newsletters maybe once a week or less depending on the author. Now I find that these newsletters have become more frequent and do not lean heavily on the news aspect of the letter anymore. In fact most of the correspondence is not even a newsletter anymore, it is a short email message recommending a friend of theirs who has just released an e-book, software or worse; another training course that will cost you a mortgage payment or two. I do not think most of these so-called gurus even check out the product before promoting it.

A good example of a product that was never checked out, never mind thought about for any reasonable period of time, was a recent software release that would post to blogs for you. This software would post a message to as many blogs as you programmed it to. Now for those of you, who do not get the point of blogging, let me explain. When you post to blogs, usually you can leave your signature file and a live link to your site or whatever you are promoting. Basically it is free advertising if done correctly. This software does not blog correctly; in fact it does not blog at all, it posts spam messages on as many blogs as you want. How can this possible help promote your business by posting irrelevant messages to blogs -- you do not see the message before yours, so how can your message have any chance of being relevant?

All of this makes me wonder if the people who have taken it upon themselves to become the voice of internet marketing are broke, or have they just had enough and are simply selling out; milking every last red cent out of their list and looking for a nice place to retire. I am going to guess it is the retirement scenario, as this whole internet marketing game is a full time job were you never really get to take it easy. Sure the money is good, but do not take your eyes off the road even for a second.