What’s weird is the concept of bidding on words – more specifically, keywords. We’re all familiar with Google’s and others’ sponsored links. And most search engine users (I think) are savvy enough to figure out who’s paying for top billing even when it’s not clearly noted on the page. But this practice of paying for words has me thinking about the power a single word can weld. The web evolves around words, so to must the search-engines and marketers who want to exploit that function. Google, Yahoo and the rest are in it for the cash, so they literally “auction” keywords to the highest bidders, who then see their ads at the top or next to relevant search results. People are paying for WORDS!

So maybe it’s not as weird as much as it is funny. Consultants get away with this sort of stuff all the time – getting paid for their ideas. Novelists and poets get paid for their words, right? But paying for a single word –- really paying for the action associated with or the material equivalent of that word – that’s what I’m thinking about.