I got an invitation to speak in a closed session about “Adversarial Information Retrieval” at a major university.  I don’t know about you guys, but that may be the single coolest description of what we do.  It has a very “007 Meets Sun Tzu” feel to it and I’m adopting it immediately.

There are so many stupid names for internet marketers and publishers out there that I have stopped keeping track.  Everyone I know calls me an SEO, but I rarely do any direct, conventional SEO stuff these days.  In fact, I’m too busy killing every other corner of the Internet to generate related SEO benefits.  

I also hate the word “webmaster” or I would have completely aligned myself with the John Andrews’ “competitive webmaster” coining.  “Webmaster” sounds like “jumpmaster”, “quartermaster”, “postmaster”, and a bunch of other archane military/government gigs for very structured people.  I mean, that sounds like a job (or “yob”, if you are from San Diego). 

So, I improvised on John’s “competitive webmastering” to something that sounds less government workerish…”The Competitive Internet.”  This a term that reflects the backstabbing, throatcutting, work hours of 9pm to 4am, making the Internet bleed lifestyle that we all live…but it maintains just enough composure that Bob Costas would want to accept a job as the Commissioner of it.  It includes SEO, SEM, arbitraging of all flavors, email marketing, CPM buying, aggressive viral copywriting for links, etc.  You know…all the shit that builds mounds and mounds of cash on the backs of non-expert Internet users and jettisons their lifeless, lead gen form filling, Adsense clicking, high open-rate corpses into a mass grave behind our offices.  That stuff…and now “adversarial information retrieval.”

With these important advancements in mind, going forward, if Jessica Alba ever asks me what I do, I’m going to tell her I’m in the Adversarial Information Retrieval business.

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