Mark Lesswing just published an interesting article on thinking through how to treat online customers. Here’s a highlight:

In person-to-person interactions, negative intentions are easy detect. People leave long lines at the bank in disgust and dislike “pushy” sales clerks. The challenge of detecting gestures on the web lies in the anonymity of the medium. We fall into the bombardment mentality because we are trying to identify the consumer.

For those interested in the direction of online marketing, the whole thing is definitely worth a read…