Scott also pointed me in the direction of Rick Butts blog and his post "Unsubscribe From Whomever Emailed You Stompernet".There is a heated (and extremely interesting) discussion going on over there about the current state of the internet marketing industry.  In particular there is a lot of debate about the recent Stompernet relaunch.  A number of big names from the industry have commented, including Frank Kern, Nathan Anderson and Scott Boulch himself (which I guess isn't a surprise in all the circumstances).  There's been no input from Brad Fallon or Andy Jenkins yet, but Dan Thies, Stompernet's SEO guru, has put their side of the case with a number of comments.  Rick has recently added a comment of his own to the effect that "NO MORE STOMPER-BASHING" and "I will delete any further posts that take personal shots here. Let's all get back to work – and focus on the positive".

Despite this I couldn't resist the urge to make a comment of my own, which included the facts about my own experiences as a member of Stompernet, and which wasn't entirely positive.  My comment is currently visible, and it doesn't look like Rick moderates his comments before displaying them. It will be interesting to see if Rick classes my contribution as "taking personal shots".  Watch this space!

P.S.  Just over an hour has passed since I clicked the "publish" button.  According to SEO Elite this post is now ranked 10 out of 619,000 on a Google search for "digital ebola virus" (no quotes).  We were ranked number 1 for "mass control sucks" (no quotes) but at the moment Google now shows this new post at number 148.

The Secret Classroom home study course itself consists of 12 additional DVDs containing the full presentations of all 12 internet marketing gurus that appeared on the show.  There is also a spiral bound book of "bullet points" from the 12 presentations. The DVDs are very professional, but some extra proof reading would have improved the book!  Nonetheless there are some great quotes to be gleaned within its pages.  Here is one from each of the gurus:

"Most people do not apply the information that they learn" – Mark Joyner

"Success leaves traces" – Armand Morin

"Prove to people that what you are selling them works" – Jeff Walker

"Attack the weakness in the leader's strength" – Marlon Sanders

"People tend to overestimate what can be done in a year and underestimate what can be done in 5-10 years" – Brad Fallon

"Find something that works.  Replicate it.  Scale it" – Kristopher Jones

"The second word in 'Viral Marketing' is marketing. Something can go viral and not make /component/page,shop.product_details/flypage,flypage.tpl/product_id,58/category_id,6/option,com_virtuemart/Itemid,28/">generic brand for cialis any money" – Mike Filsaime

"Most people are 'afraid' of making videos" – Michael Koenigs

"Bad copy kills companies" – Ray Edwards

"If you can't be found, you are dead" – Dave Taylor

"It is more important to know a market, than to know about marketing" – Perry Marshall

"You are only as good as your reputation" – Rich Schefren

A more detailed review will follow when we've had a chance to look at the course DVDs, and also at the one time offer "Closed Door Sessions".  These are interviews with 11 of the 12 gurus conducted by Heather Vale, apparently not seen or heard even by the contestants on the show (Heather didn't interview Kris Jones for some reason).  I'm particularly interested to discover what Michael Koenigs has to say about using videos to generate traffic!