So I’m chatting with a prospective client the other day and he wants me to look at his AVVO profile.

I hit the bookmarks and AVVO pops up ….. quickly as always ( I love a huge site that loads fast).

What the heck is this? Where happened to my AVVO?

The AVVO I know….the one that attorneys all over the country have used to build a personal profile, and a boatload of consumers use regularly to get answers to common legal questions …. is now highlighting ….

Doctors!

What a perfect way to screw-up a brand.

They had already passed by www.lawyers.com (Lexis) for total monthly traffic and I’m sure Findlaw was looking over their shoulder to see how close AVVO was getting.

Avvo, who was methodically grabbing market-share from the established players, and probably making a little cash too, decides to target physicians as well? Wow.

This move makes no sense …. whatsoever.

Is it stupidity? Arrogance? Greed?

All Three?

AVVO has just started down the path …. of killing their own brand.

They could learn a lesson from Google …. build a better mousetrap and continually make it better, till you kill your competition.

Then you start playing around in other markets.