way, the following two statements have equal truth value: Cheyvitz's article could be the most important thing you read this year. Or it could be a load of crap he believes without proof. The time has come to abandon the evangelists Being charitable, Cheyvitz might just be a little bit crazy, rather than knowingly misleading. That being the case it's unfair of Pando to parade his madness for the entertainment and amusement of the public. The days of public visiting at Bedlam are over. It's time for social media to grow up. Here's an admission. In the early days of social media we needed evangelists. We needed people who could tell big exciting stories with big exciting numbers. That is -- as every entrepreneur knows -- how we sell promising new ideas: by promising big, and by relying heavily on words like "could" and ideas like "everyone else is a lazy, befuddled, herd-following epsilon-minus semi moron, but smart people like you and I share a higher truth." Those big numbers, steep curves, and that sense of exclusive insider knowledge are attractive to a very specific kind of buyer; the early adopter. And just as there are early adopter consumers, there are early adopter advertisers. Those early adopters been fantastic at supporting, growing and defining the early days of our industry. I'd suggest that -- for many of them, social media marketing has already become a profitable part of their business. The challenge we face now is how we introduce social