I keep reading these marketing books which say that markets are conversations and over at SearchGuild we recently had two distinctly different types of people come to the forums. Each came to represent their product and they fared way differently. Person 1: Dez from WebSearch.com.au spoke in a human voice about his search engine. He has even lended tips to some moderators on how to improve their sites...we think Dez is the bomb diggity!

Person 2: DirectorySearch from DirectorySearch announced his URL and basically bailed. In the process he alienated many of us and actually hurt his product. He never gave his name and failed to even fully answer the questions about his products.

DirectorySearch does have a good script, but product alone does not make or break you. It's how you use the product and how you communicate with the customer that helps build long term value.