I recently came across an article that talked about how the only real metric for selling advertisers, the unique visitor, is now being devalued. Many new web 2.0 start ups are using techniques that artificially inflate this count in order to show investors a certain level of popularity. The article points to a few schemes including facebook's 'zombie' unauthorized messages for applications and more recently Twply with Twitter, sending tweets to all one's contacts.

A backlash started, but it hardly mattered. Twply sold itself—and all the user login data—on SitePoint.com for $1,200 just hours after it launched.

I think that if this is a trend that continues, it will be detrimental in the long run. Investors will be suspicious of online user patterns and will not be able to trust current data. Since there really is no other reliable metric, it is imparative to keep this metric sound. I don't know what is the most efficient way of doing this is, but in the long run it is best for everyone, especially the entreprenuers, for this metric to be unadulturated. If popularity is falsified, certain technologies will be invested in and end up failing in later stages. It is best to have accurate data in order to accurately gauge whether it is worth supporting or not. Web 2.0 startups inevitably follow Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest when they truly aren't popular with users.