“Marketing is the cost you pay for lousy products.”

–Sergey Brin

This is one of my favorite quotes from Brin, a man I consider to be one of the smartest on the planet. Some disagree with him, but I actually think that he’s on to something.

Think about Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. Do they go a great deal of advertising? Not really. Their platforms and their planks, users, customers, and partners do most of their marketing for them.

This happens every time that someone:

• Notices someone using iPad on the subway.
• Sees someone reading a Kindle at the gym.
• Says to someone, “Just Google it.”
• New friends connect on Facebook.

In the Age of the Platform, the rules of marketing and advertising are different.