One can excuse Steve Rubel, Edelman's web marketing guru, his wide-eyed enthusiasm for every hyped-up internet trend that comes along; he seems sincere, and cynicism wins no clients. As for the photoshoot for BusinessWeek, in which a nebbishy Rubel posed as blogging superhero: the business magazine's photogs have ways of making people look foolish. But less forgivable is Rubel's latest crush: on Second Life, and efforts by Sears and others to promote shopping in the clunky virtual world. "Get ready for V-tail," gushes Rubel. First of all, shopping in 3D is a dated idea of the future, tried, disastrously, by Boo.com in the late 1990s. Second, we have searchable catalogs for shopping, and they're just fine. Third, we know it's your job to come up with catchphrases. But, V-tail. Please. Really. Please.

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