New media gurus these days rave about getting tens of thousands — or millions — of page views on MySpace and YouTube.

But any idiot can put up a video that gets a ton of traffic. The easiest way: just use sex.

As Steve Hall writes at www.adgabber.com: “Anytime you stick a stunningly beautiful, hot looking, busty girl in a video, wide viewership is not far behind.”

When I took my first marcom job in the late 1970s at Westinghouse Defense, a product manager told me: “Forget all that marcom crap you guys do; HERE’S how to sell defense systems.”

He opened a thick binder with 8 X 10″ color photos of bikini models straddling missiles and control panels.

What the social media/online video crowd seems to be missing is that getting attention is easy — always has been. Just use sex, violence, or weirdness.

However, getting the kind of attention that draws qualified prospects who are interested in your product — and ultimately buy — is another story.

And relatively few marketers — new media or old — are masters of that skill.

Anyone can post a video of a hard body girl in a bikini doing jumping jacks.

But how do you monetize that if you are not selling relevant, related offers like beauty, health, travel, or fashion?