Get to the Po!nt

A Challenge to Conventional Wisdom

We spend a lot of time oohing over the newest ideas and technology, but it never hurts to get a contrarian perspective. And, boy, does Gene Marks have one! In a column at BusinessWeek, the cost-conscious author takes aim at everything from RSS feeds to blogs and antivirus software.

Here's a sampling from his top 10 list of items a small business owner might find overrated and underwhelming:
Spam filters. They sound good, says Marks, but they often block the customer messages you actually want. "Or [they] require a sender to complete a Sudoku puzzle before 'allowing' their email to reach your in-box," he claims. "In the end, it's cheaper for your employees to just sort and delete spam as it comes in."

Online video. Why not post videos at YouTube? Because, Marks says, the cost and complexity of using this ostensibly free and easy service might be too high. "Videos require production companies," he writes. "Otherwise you'll have grainy, useless footage."

Web 2.0. Marks saves some if his most damning comments for the online darlings of forward-looking marketers. "I hear all these great predictions of earth-shaking developments to come. I hear words like 'mashup' and 'wiki,' and I'm still trying to figure out how these affect my business," he says.

The Po!nt: "My life as a small business owner has been littered with stuff that doesn't work as billed, particularly technology," writes Marks. "We business owners are subjected to an endless array of tools that never fail to disappoint. We're promised. We pay. And we're let down." It's a pessimistic viewpoint, to be sure, but one to ponder before spending lots of cash for technology that won't necessarily improve your bottom line.