Image via WikipediaThe other day, I heard this joke.

How do you get a client to leave an agency?

Roll a shiny nickel down the sidewalk.

Hohoho. (sarcastic laughter followed by awkward silence)

• Firstly, clients are not dumb.  Nor are they naive.
  

• Secondly, agencies (and unagencies) are just as at fault here as their clients. 

Shiny Nickels are nothing new, and they aren't going away.  We just need to learn to put on sunglasses.

Raise your hand if you remember AOL chatrooms.  Now tell me how different they are than Twitter.  Now tell me Twitter is a fad that is going to fade away.  Sure, we may access the platform in new ways, but the platforms, and their users, don't disappear.  They shift.

Think about it.
    Twhirl is to Twitter as AIM is to AOL Chatrooms.

Twhirl and Twitter may not be the future, but they aren't dead.  Just because it is shiny, doesn't make it unsustainable (for at least a few years).  Just because it is shiny, doesn't mean that it is useless. 

If you don't look at your life through the filter of common sense, everything will look skewed.  However, put on the shades of reality and allocate your budgets accordingly, and you will be set for life.

If you believe in every pitch you hear, you're going to end up falling flat on your face, very, very quickly.
If you stop believing in the value of the startup, you shouldn't be in media.

NewsCorp was once an emerging business.
Google still is in many ways still a startup.
Facebook is a startup.

Don't chase the all the shiny nickels. 
But avoid them at your own peril.