The most powerful form of advertising is being exceptional, says a technologist quoted in Sunday’s NY Times. He’s talking about Google, of course, by far the most innovative and exceptional company of the past decade.

Columnist David Carr’s love letter to the search giant rhapsodizes about the quality and ease of use of company’s many free web apps, especially the latest, Google Video Chat. And about how hard they are to resist.

(Aside: Reading Carr’s piece is almost like watching someone slip into drug addiction. Like most of us, Carr started with the “gateway drug,” Google Search. Then came some harmless experimentation with Gmail — and the boy was hooked. After that it was an easy descent into Google Calendar, Maps, even the hard stuff like Google Reader…)

One familiar aspect of Carr’s piece was his worry that he might someday regret giving up so much personal information to Google. I certainly share his concern. But this is a marketing blog, and Carr’s most cogent observation was about Google’s marketing — or rather, the lack of it.

Take video chat. Many other companies would take that kind of quantum leap and shout it from the rooftops, but Google just did a smallish blog post about the new feature and left it at that. “We have a philosophy that our products should speak for themselves,” said Jeff Huber, senior vice president for engineering at Google. “We tend not to make a lot of noise.”

That’s for sure. When was the last time you saw an ad for Google? Probably never. Compare that to the extensive advertising for Microsoft and Apple. Why the difference? Carr says “Google’s Web platform, in all of its high-functioning glory, is also its marketing.”

Bottom line: If you’re exceptional, you don’t need much marketing. The word always gets out. Of course, most companies are not exceptional, unfortunately. Not even Apple and Microsoft. Which keeps people like me in business.

We all do it. We spout shopworn cliches and mindless crutch phrases that make our victims listeners roll their eyes and grind their teeth. Cliches are just as bad in the written word, of course. But at least a reader can turn the page and skip over them. But when you’re in a business meeting or presentation, you’re trapped.

BBC News Magazine has compiled a list of its readers’ twenty most-hated phrases. Nothing new there — you’ll recognize them immediately. Yes indeed, you’ll see old friends like:

• “touch base” (and most other tiresome sports analogies)
• “110 percent”
• “24/7″
• “going forward”
• “in the pipeline”
• “roll out
• “can’t get my head around it” and many more

The worst thing is, the more you notice someone using these grating phrases, the more you notice them. Like, they’re all you can hear — which makes them even more exasperating. So, going forward, let’s try and keep stupid cliches out of the pipeline and maybe roll out some new ones — okay, team? If everyone works 24/7 and gives 110%, by the end of the day we’ll… oh, never mind.

via Lifehacker photo credit: erinEG6

The Behemoth from Redmond has made billions selling software in boxes. Now — about ten years late — it’s finally opened an online store, leveraging the efficiency of the Internet to reduce overhead and offer lower prices. Except they’re not offering lower prices. They’re charging more online.

Hmmm, interesting strategy. Is there something I’m missing?

Let’s compare prices. Better yet, since I’m pretty lazy, let ReadWriteWeb do it.

Windows Vista Ultimate with SP1

• Microsoft Store: $319.95
• Amazon: $249.99
• Royal Discount (via Bizrate) $222.98

Another example: Office Standard 2007 (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook)

• Microsoft Store $399.95
• Amazon: $318.99

OK, I realize Ballmer & Co. have to be careful not to incur the wrath of their retail channel by underselling them. But if you’re not going to offer bargains, why even bother with an online store? Would someone please enlighten me?

Or would somebody loan them a clue…

Can a blog really attract customers? It can — if your customers are web developers. Peldi Guilizzoni, a solo software developer, built a web design mock-up tool called Balsamiq and promoted it on his blog.

In the “open” spirit of the Internet, Guilizzoni also posted his financial records right on his blog so everyone would know how things were going. And things are going… really, really well!

According to ReadWriteWeb, Peldi had $10k in sales within six weeks. Not bad. Now it’s five months later Balsamiq has brought in $100K (at roughly $79 per license). That averages out to $20K per month or $5K per week or $1000 per (work)day. Not too shabby for a one-person shop!

Have you experienced similar online success? Know of others who have? Share the joy in the comments.