"And I don’t mean read the Web to learn about SEO."
Like you want to do marketing the old way, print ads or something? Without SEO there is no online marketing, Without the Web your marketing will fail in 2009.
Poorly consructed sentence. The emphasis should have been: "I don't mean read the web to learn about SEO". Reading is a passive activity. You can read all day long, you will learn a lot, but you still won't have accomplished any of the useful marketing activities of engaging with your users, key influencers and so on.
Of course SEO is useful and the web is a must. But you must write, not just read.
