The New York Times had this article over the weekend all about how online retailing is so over. Yesterday. Dead. Done. Well, maybe they didn’t proclaim it over, but they certainly were calling dibs on the rotting remains. Anyway, as soon as I saw this I was struck by what this meant. Well, let me clarify, I don’t really see this as substantive news. I mean, I was struck by the fact that I was going to have to deal with the media now acting as if this was reality. One article doesn’t make anything so, but by virtue of the NY Times writing this article, doing some decent research and gotten some solid names to give quotes– a cursory glance at the article would convince a reader to take for granted that online sales or slowing.

What does it matter? Well, I guess it doesn’t. But I was thinking about how so much of the media seems to be sheep these days. One station or outlet reports something, and then, all of a sudden, it’s fact! Everyone quotes patient zero and it’s true. The media chases the hot story, and usually, the simple story. So if someone has done the legwork and seems to have their stuff together– sure, let’s run with it!

And so, I should probably admit something: I’m probably wrong here. I thought this for sure on Sunday when I saw this article. But it’s Tuesday now and I haven’t seen everyone jump all over it. So it looks like I’m wrong. But I still think my overall thought is probably right, and so I thought I’d post it anyway.

Sports Illustrated? Oh yeah. The SI curse. You’ve heard of it. Once an athlete or team appears on the cover, typically something ill happens to them. Injury. Losing streak. Terrible luck. Whatever. And so, it’s called the sports illustrated curse. I’ve always thought that was total crap. As I’m sure a lot of people had. Most recently I saw this with Lebron. He lit the Pistons up and had something like 29 of his teams final 30 points. People were proclaiming him the greatest thing since Jordan. Since sliced bread! It’s incredible! Lebron saves all! He can’t be stopped! Now, I’m not sure if he actually graced the cover of SI or not that week, but it doesn’t matter. It’s the kind of thing that one would make the cover of SI for. It was then that I realized that it’s the hype of the media that’s at fault. Actually, strike that. It’s the hype in general. Typically before SI puts someone on the cover, they’re near frothy levels. Everything about them is overblown and people think they’re infallible. So, what I’m saying is that SI is merely the symptom of the disease. They put the athlete or team on the cover because we think they’re practically perfect. We’ve set them on their pedestal. And of course, almost everything on a pedestal eventually returns to earth. If even for but a time. And since SI is a lagging indicator (the person/team has been hot for a while, and SI gets to them once it’s practically consensus hysteria)they’re primed for the fall. And so I thought this once Lebron went all nuts on the Pistons. I thought, “man, they’re hyping him up and then they’re going to rip him apart.” And sure enough, there was the “curse.” Terrible all 4 games against the Spurs on route to a sweep. The truth, which most of us knew? Lebron is not yet the best player in the NBA (right after that sick performance), and he’s certainly not a terrible player who shoots near-30% a night. He’s a ridiculously good developing player. But we forget. It’s far easy to classify people, things, etc as amazing/best ever and awful/failure. That’s life.

Oh, and I guess that ties back to first article in that it seems much of the media loves to do this too. Go for the simple story. Good. Bad. e-commerce is so over. What do I think about e-commerce. It’s like Lebron. I think e-commerce is resting. $10 says that a sweet technology, feature, site, etc within a year that kicks demand up again. But the fact that it’s a multi-variable equation isn’t nearly as sexy as “has online retailing entered the Dot Calm era?”