The essence of marketing, one could say, is differentation—tell people how you're better (or at least different) than someone else, or you don't have a chance of catching their attention. That fairly simple concept seems to be lost on the majority of big web properties these days. They tout sameness almost as if it were a virtue. Jake pointed out the other day how Fool.com is almost an exact replica of Amazon. PC World writes that "Would Amazon.com do that?" has become a mantra for certain sites. And everyone has noted long ago that all portals look mind-numbingly similar. But I'm not just talking about appearance. The sighting that set me off on this rant was ZDNet (which, interestingly, I got to by following Nikolai's "the worst site on the net" Google search.), which brags in big letters, "FREE!...Sign up for ZDNet and start enjoying all the benefits of free membership today!: Free e-mail account, Free downloads, And much more..."

Holy, cow! Free email?! Free downloads?! No way! Where do I volunteer my personal information?! I'm telling all my friends! And so on.

It makes sense, of course, that the big original ideas don't come out of such companies. The market is such that when an original thinker, if they were ever convinced to join one of these mammoths, has a really good idea, the most logical thing for them to do is leave and try to build a company off it on their own. But geez, you'd think they could come up with something just a little bit more interesting.