Maybe, The New York Times recently reported a story about an online glasses and contact lens merchant who purportedly garnered top search engine rankings because of negative reviews left by dissatisfied customers around the web. The online retailer bragged to his customers: "I just wanted to let you guys know that the more replies you people post, the more business and the more hits and sales I get. My goal is NEGATIVE advertisement."

His operation worked like this: somebody would order glasses or contact lenses from his site, he would then place an order for cheaper versions of glasses or contact lenses and have the package forwarded to the customer's shipping address. But when people complained about receiving suspiciously cheap eyewear, the owner and his henchmen fought back with alarming intimidation and threats.

Building your brand online and being discovered in search.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then how many words is a video worth? At least a thousand, if not many more. The greatest advantage video offers is the ease to which it can communicate an idea, and the degree to which our brains are naturally wired to absorb information in this way.

When the web first entered our homes, it was this new medium with which to share information and manage data on a very basic scale. In the early to mid-nineties, we were able to share text and images. With the explosion of broadband the web can now drive richer content to our screens and provide higher level experiences such as videos and interactive Flash websites. And with these new applications comes a greater opportunity to communicate who you are.

More recently countless businesses have taken to online video and viewed it as an opportunity to build their brand presence. Some have been quicker out of the gates than others, but now that so many have done it, it might be useful to ask yourself: why should I do it?

It's been a busy couple of weeks since the Web 2.0 Expo wrapped up in NYC. It was a great opportunity to meet some of the new faces behind up and coming web applications and to mingle with some of the more brilliant minds of the industry. The venue moved from the much larger Javits Center to the more intimate surroundings of the Sheraton NY in mid-town creating a more concentrated and inclusive atmosphere.