Patrick is smart and good at what he does, but he is by no means the main influence or the main innovator in the space of PPC, SEO, A/B testing, or e-mail marketing. He took a lot of existing information, tools, ideas, and processes and applied them intelligently to his business. Then he wrote about them on his blog.
People in the affiliate space were talking about and doing these things like ten years ago or more. I've been doing it myself on various projects since 2005. I think he started blogging a lot about it in 2007, which is awesome.
Patrick is not the first, and probably isn't the best, but he IS the first to write about it in a way that developers and hackers understand and can get behind. It's great that he's done such a good job of informing so many people of these very useful ideas and techniques.
Just don't think he is THE influence, because like everyone else, he got there by standing on the shoulders of those who came before.
I'm sure that Patrick didn't "invent" email marketing, SEO or A/B testing, nor it was my intention to undermine the contributions of all the people involved in the field. I myself have an academic background in most of what is now called "Data Science", so I kind of understand how some areas of knowledge, already applied in industry, can be "rediscovered" and "rebranded" giving the impresion of a "new field"
Maybie I should have been more specific. I meant the influence in the HN microcosm, which sometimes seems to work as a "collective unconscious". Of course this is all gut feeling and maybie I shouldn't had brought it up, but I do get the impresion that either Patrick "gets" some upcoming "trends" beforehand and applies/writes about them in his blog, or he triggers the trends himself (the popularity of HN is no secret).
Patrick is an amazing guy, but yeah, it's definitely good to remember that The Real World is a LOT bigger than the HN echo chamber. There's tons of good information out there on marketing, sales, etc., if one is willing to look for it. Limiting oneself to just what shows up here on HN would be silly.
People in the affiliate space were talking about and doing these things like ten years ago or more. I've been doing it myself on various projects since 2005. I think he started blogging a lot about it in 2007, which is awesome.
Patrick is not the first, and probably isn't the best, but he IS the first to write about it in a way that developers and hackers understand and can get behind. It's great that he's done such a good job of informing so many people of these very useful ideas and techniques.
Just don't think he is THE influence, because like everyone else, he got there by standing on the shoulders of those who came before.