It’s the Four Horsemen! I wonder if they sign autographs…
So here are some tips on how to cut your Web 2.0 Startup’s costs!
Tip 1: Cut the Crap
You know all those company indoor-skydiving events? Or huge launch parties? How about huge spacious warehouse offices in “posh” San Francisco that you don’t need, and only fill 20% of?
Yep. You guessed it! Stop spending your precious (or not-so-precious depending on how “smart” and “intelligent” your “great idea” is) money on stupid and wasteful things. What happened to the “startups are rough” culture? I remember hearing rumors of working out of garages, the “company” being all of three people, and not having time to do anything but product/company development (including socializing).
Nowadays there isn’t a “wonderful startup” in the Bay Area that doesn’t have “I’m a cool hipster!” office space, 2000% more employees than they actually need, or the “employee mood improvement” accessories like nap pods or free espresso to the end of infinity.
“Oh, man! We are so cool.”
But you probably don’t have to do anything about that, do you? Because all these things are important to the startup culture, they’re critical to success! You obviously can’t make a widget for viewing your zombie pokes on someone’s blog without having hundreds of well rested hipster caffeine robot employees.
So now you have to find a way to make money. Let me suggest not responding with “Google AdSense!” or “We’ll get sponsors!” because you and I both know that won’t work either. You need to find a real way to make money, if that’s even possible.
Even Cartman figured it out.
In the real world, real companies make real products and sell them to real people. Did you know that even happens online sometimes? Or they use their products as a middleman vehicle for other people’s products, or a different one of their own. Again, who knew?
But this probably also doesn’t apply to you either. Not only is no-one going to pay for a “pro” account on your Facebook-but-for-dogs site (Flickr is the exception, not the rule), but you can’t charge people! That goes against all the principles of socialism and Web 2.0! It would be tantamount to treason, probably.
Tip 3: Stop Being Stupid
This third tip is probably the best of them all, and the most valuable to you and your company: fold up shop. Call it quits. Pack up. Go home. Let the fat lady sing.
Whatever euphamism you want to use, I’m suggesting you stop doing what you’re doing. Maybe you can change the world with your Javascript-based social network TI-83 calculator replication website, but then again, you aren’t The President of the U.S. … despite what your mommy told you when you were little.
I made this one myself. Pretty talented, eh?
It’s time for Web 2.0 to die, and I’m all for it. There are some companies that will remain, and some of those may even have a right to (RockYou, Slide, etc. … you don’t even qualify as real companies). But the rest need to go away, even if it 6 months for them to burn through their millions in funding by continuing “growth” (hiring their friends) and “development” (creating APIs).
Fun Times
I’d love to say it’s been a fun ride, but it really hasn’t.
See you on the flipside, where you’re a homeless “idea man”, and I’m not.
p.s. Hopefully this means that alot of the Web 2.0 hypecrowd echochamber dies off. I can always hope that my archnemesis Michelle Failington of TechFlunk disappears soon… maybe even MashablePR too.
posted on October 10th, 2008 at 9:27 am by Kyle - Comments
What’s the old adage? “You can put rollerskates on a cow, and it’s still just a cow. With rollerskates. But it’s not always a great idea.” Never heard of it? Probably because I just made it up.
Being a programmer, coder, hacker, or any other variant of the idea of creating computer software (on any level) is not something you just wake up one day and decide to do. You can’t, even if you wanted to. This isn’t the same as studying for 4 years at your favorite college to get a degree in Economics and go pretend you know what all those giant spreadsheets mean.
Programming is typically borne from a love of computers, an obsession with them, and a need to know more. You start tinkering with your Operating System (probably Windows of some sort), modifying things you don’t like and figuring out workarounds for those “people are dumb, treat them that way” software design idea.
Einstein seems to get what I’m saying.
And then you realize that you can create software. Maybe you start with HTML and websites. Maybe it’s PHP in the form of a mashup from your favorite websites. Or maybe you even start playing with C++ or Java.
All while in middle school, or maybe even high school. Because you definitely know you have a love affair with computers before you go to college, and have a high level of proficiency at any number of things computer-related.
Trust Me
I’m not making this up. Us programmers are the same people you called geeks, nerds, and whatever else when we were younger, and now we happen to be the cool kids. It doesn’t matter if you’re 40 or 20, people put you on a higher pedestal when they know you design software, because they simply don’t understand it.
Ask “that guy” that you know about how he got into it. He’ll tell you.
It’s Important
Why is it important? Because programming is not just about learning how to program, the syntax, structure, and quirks of a language. It’s not even about being qualified to cry about pointer management or laugh at people who think Internet Explorer is “the Internet”.
It’s important because programming has alot to do with how you think. How you approach situations, analyze them, and segment them into solution-oriented tasks. How you continually test your code, trying to account for every possible outcome, and include contingencies for any and all failures.
Former MBA students: this is you.
There’s a reason why people are called “Software Engineers” and not “Software Artists”.
Read More
If you come across a scientific analysis of programming or how programmers work, take the time to read it. Because current findings are that programmers are not just Engineers, but they’re also artists, despite what I said three sentences ago.
Programming requires the massive analytical processes of an Engineer, but it also requires a high level of finesse, creativity, and “out of the box” thinking typically associated with artists.
This means you need both sides of your brain when you are writing your Pizza Hut Ordering System hack.
This is what happens when you only code for the money.
My Point
So here’s my point: these kids may go to school thinking they can just graduate with a Computer Science degree, be programmers, and make lots of money in a secure job. They may even accomplish that.
But they’ll never be true programmers. They’ll probably hate their jobs. And they’ll definitely never do anything great or revolutionary.
True programmers, the ones that change the world, do it not for the money, even though it’s nice to have. They do it because they love it. These are the people who have full-time jobs and multiple side projects, always hoping one day to run their own company or get a research grant to do what they want, on their own time.
Some of the best programmers of today and of yore don’t even have degrees.
How is having a degree, when you’re the wrong type of person, going to make things better?
posted on October 7th, 2008 at 8:15 am by Kyle - Comments
Here’s another piece I had to write for a class, but this time it’s a bona fide paper: 5 pages, formal voice… with sources!
Enjoy.
— — —
In Barbara Whitehead’s essay, “Parents Need Help: Restricting Access to Video Games”, she bastardizes the basic concept of a video game and, consequently, argues quite vehemently against an individual’s freedom to purchase the games they wish if they are under an arbitrarily mandated age limit, such as 18 years old (Whitehead 108). She may very well have significant power of influence, in this situation, over a large group of people: the old, the digitally disconnected, and the unintelligent. However, to any outside observer with a working knowledge of both the current state of modern media and the video game entertainment industry, her conclusions, and proposals, will seem extremely ludicrous. She’s not alone in her opinions, nor is she the first: this is the common war cry of an old, tired, and increasingly embarrassing generation.
Whitehead’s central tenet is that video games promote “fantasy rape, beheadings, and mass murder” (108), and should subsequently be government regulated, much like alcohol, cigarettes, or certain substances. Using quotes from an obscure Governor, along with brief descriptions of only the most violent video games to ever exist, she proceeds to argue that parents cannot “parent” on their own in a modern society. Operating from a belief that parents should have ultimate control over every activity their children participate in, Whitehead states that the videogame industry’s overall attitude of parent-based regulation is not sufficient, unless “it were still 1995″ (109), where she believes the parental load was considerably lighter, thanks to a non-digital age. Additionally, the fact that the industry created a self-regulating board, the ESRB, to label games in age-appropriate categories is also insufficient, because “it isn’t enforced” (109). Somewhat significantly, Whitehead seems to have a deep and underlying problem with capitalism in general, citing the videogame industry (along with others) as
“a multibillion-dollar industry that spends all its time and money devising ever more ingenious ways to market to kids over the heads of their parents and to deliberately undermine the ability of parents to regulate what their children are seeing.” (109)
As an argument, Whitehead falls short of providing a compelling case against videogames, using quotes from an obscure semi-figurehead as her entire source arsenal to defend her own personal beliefs and outlandish claims. Her structure is typical of the targeted essay found in niche publications: short, fevered, and wildly supportive of it’s point without any bipartisan insight. This is not surprising, however, as this essay was originally published in Commonweal, “a review of religion, politics, and culture” (Commonweal) read, and written, largely by Catholics. The language itself is simplistic and at a low reading level, which again is a play by Whitehead to her audience.
While the argument may have proper literary structure and a glossy coat of legibility, the effectiveness of her authorship is largely indicative of failure. In fact, changing the category of this essay from “argument” to “informative” or “cannon fodder” would not be a far stretch: Whitehead does not state, or even argue, against anything that her readers in Commonweal would disagree with. When an author caters to their targeted audience, this is typically classified as “pandering”, not “arguing”. However, to the unobservant or casual reader from another source, this so-called argument may sound logical and sound if the true facts are not inherent to the reader and the essay is taken at face value.
Fortunately, Whitehead’s blatant failures are not obscured by clouds of religion, fervent beliefs, or audience pandering to all. The essay is riddled with large holes of both logic and rationality, but there are two more overbearing than the rest: videogames’ “advocacy” of violence and other cultural problem points; and the “failure” of the ERSB and the private sector to regulate the industry (Whitehead 109).
Throughout history immemorial, any school of thought, technological advance, or progress otherwise has been consistently viewed with fear, disdain, and war mongering by many of the larger and culturally-ingrained organizations (Barker), the two most common being the Catholic Church (Robinson) and the generation outbound from this world. Not surprisingly, Whitehead straddles both categorizations comfortably, and does not perceive either of them to be debilitating to her sense of reason or logic. The attack on videogames has consistently used the violence as a key argumentative point, citing the thin correlations between videogame players and modern violence. While the majority of studies, such as PBS’ “Reality Bites: Eight Myths About Video Games Debunked”, have quantitatively proven that those individuals predisposed to violence are drawn to videogames, and not vice versa (D. Jenkins), Whitehead proceeds to take this extremely conservative concept to another level: if video games involve violence, they must logically be supporting it as well.
A statement with such a logic structure is laughable in most situations, but, for some reason, seems to be largely accepted as reasonable in the argument againstvideogames . Applying the same parameters to other industries, one finds a few interesting examples of insanity: the snow sports industry must be a fervent supporter of death and injury, since they provide the means to those ends;internet service providers are guaranteed to be in large support of digital piracy and theft, since they provide the unfettered connections to those sources; and the auto industry is widely known to be supportive of high speed chases and police evasion, since the cars they make are capable of achieving just that. This type of logic quickly falls to pieces under any sort of intelligent scrutiny.
Blaming the product for the actions of its users is a dangerous road, but not quite as dangerous as calling out both democracy and capitalism at large as the focal point of failure for what is, apparently to some, a modern plight of hedonism, violence, and amorality. The American Federal Government is responsible for it’s people, yes, but not for the regulation of everyday activities that are, for all intents and purposes, trivial. In the case of dangerous substance regulation, federal involvement is warranted, and accepted as necessary by the majority of the populace. However, media is a benign form of entertainment, one that does not require a decree of what we are worthy to absorb as humans, especially when the media in question is associated with children. This is the role of a special class of humanity, known as “parents.”
Regardless of whether it was truly necessary or not, the videogame industry decided to self-regulate, to a certain extent, and created the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB). The goal of this joint-exercise operation is not to control the actual sale of their products, but rather to inform parents or retailers of the nature of the materials themselves. According to its mandate, the ESRB
“assigns computer and video game content ratings, enforces industry-adopted advertising guidelines and helps ensure responsible online privacy practices for the interactive entertainment software industry.” (ESRB)
When the ESRB is viewed as a ratings system, much like the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), their success is quite obvious: every modern videogame requires a rating to be sold to the public. However, it falls to the retailers themselves as to whether the rating’s age-appropriate parameters are enforced, or the parents’ judgement. Certain retailers do vigorously prohibit the sale of video games to minors who are not of the suggested minimum age, and sometimes even with a consenting adult present (H. Jenkins).
The nature of democracy and capitalism can easily be seen in the videogame industry, as there was a public desire, and a vibrant market has grown to accommodate it, all without unnecessary regulation. To suggest that such an entertainment market requires governmental oversight is to question the fundamentals of democracy: at what point does federal regulation in a democracy become federal mandates of an entirely different type of government? As evidenced by the current market crisis, largely influenced by crushing bank failure, the private sector does not always act in its own best interests. However, the difference between a market capable of plunging an entire country into a recession and an entertainment market that caters to a younger audience are staggering.
In presenting an argument for, or against, regulations in the videogame entertainment industry, both sides need be considered, with realistic and unbiased support and evidence. Barbara Dafoe Whitehead may have failed miserably at achieving an argument worthy of praise and admiration, but she unintentionally raises an important cause for concern: will the fears and war mongering of the ever-deteriorating older generations, along with the extreme conservatives, be the undoing of a Democratic America? In waging their Aged Americans’ Jihad, will they inadvertently cause a chaotic chain of events that lead to a regulated, religious, and strictly controlled government state?
Perhaps. But that’s exactly why the majority of Americans have very little control over their government. To avoid an Apocalypse of Stupidity.
ESRB. 2008. Entertainment Software and Ratings Board. 30 Sept. 2008 <http://www.esrb.org/>.
Jenkins, David. “Survey: 46% of Stores Selling M-Rated Games To Minors.” Weblog post. Game Career Guide. 22 Nov. 2007. 30 Sept. 2008 <http://www.gamecareerguide.com/industry_news/16343/survey_46_of_stores_selling_.php>.
Jenkins, Henry. “Reality Bits: Eight Myths About Video Games Debunked.” PBS. PBS. 2008. 30 Sept. 2008 <http://www.pbs.org/kcts/videogamerevolution/impact/myths.html>.
Robinson, B.A. “Current and historical teachings of the Roman Catholic Church about other faith groups.” ReligiousTolerance.org 16 July 2007. 30 Sept. 2008 <http://www.religioustolerance.org/rcc_othe1.htm>.
Whitehead, Barbara Dafoe. “Parents Need Help: Restricting Access to Video Games.” Commonweal 28 Jan. 2005. Rpt. in Elements of Argument: a Text and Reader. Ed. Annette T. Rottenberg and Donna Haisty Winchell. Ninth ed. Boston: Clemson University, 2009. 108-109.
posted on September 30th, 2008 at 7:04 am by Kyle - Comments
First, I get an email saying Disc 1 is going to ship from Phoenix, AZ. I didn’t really give it much thought at the time.
Then I get this email today, saying it’ll be here on Monday.
Monday? Really? What happened to “Next Day Shipping”? I didn’t realize that your promises to your customers had a geography clause.
I had previously wondered what happened if a disc in the middle of a series is missing, like “Stargate: SG-1″ has a few “long waits” at the moment. Here’s what I had found.
So I have a question for you, Mr. Netflix. How can you be intelligent enough to not ship a series when it’s not fully complete and waiting for me, but you’re not intelligent enough to not ship something when it’s “too far away” (geography clause!) to be here on the normal schedule?
Right. Because that makes alot of sense.
— — —
Update (9/25/2008 3:15pm PST): I just got off the phone with Customer Service (no hold times or phone menus!), and they supposedly have a system in place that looks for these sort of things. They didn’t comment on the “Next Day” geography clause, but instead said that they usually don’t remote-ship things if it’s approaching a weekend.
They apologized, and are supposedly shipping out a “Bonus Disk” from my Queue tomorrow.
Hopefully it’s one that’s local and won’t be here next Wednesday.
Update (9/29/2008 9:00pm PST): The disc isn’t here yet! Just kidding. I got it on Saturday, and was very surprised that it all went down so smoothly and properly.
Thanks, Netflix, for being awesome. This is why no-one goes to Block…who? anymore.
posted on September 25th, 2008 at 3:14 pm by Kyle - Comments
I had to write this for a class, and thought I’d share it with the world since it contains my world-famous scorn, sarcasm, and utter disdain for the stupidity of certain people.
This was born out of an article in the SF Chronicle that was pretty biased towards “OH MY GOD THE CHILDREN TODAY ARE SUCH CHEATERS!!!!!”
Enjoy.
— — —
Let’s not kid anyone: cheating has been an issue for decades, if not longer, by athletes. Today’s middle aged parents are more than willing to discuss how they either cheated so they could “play in the big game” or they helped someone cheat for the same reason. So alarmist cries of shame for this specific demographic are unnecessary. It’s not new to the current educational generation, and don’t pretend otherwise.
That being said, cheating for purely academic reasons (”the smart kids”) may be new, but the “how perfect are you?” situation of college admissions hasn’t occurred at this level of intensity ever before, so there is no standard to compare to. Assuming it didn’t previously exist, this culture of perfection, induced by the inane requirements of colleges who think too highly of themselves, can be the only cause. So don’t cry about milk that was not only spilled, but spilled by your own hand.
Most academic cheating occurs on a low level, and not as many would assume. “Cheating” now encompasses using someone’s words or ideas without referencing them as the source, through a rigorous and annoyingly complicated process. Combine this with the ever-more-restrictive copyright laws and decisions from the Supreme Court, and it’s almost impossible to not cheat in today’s society.
However, if you consider issues such as “copying homework” or writing papers, you find the same issue. It’s very difficult to attempt cheating in a class such as Physics III: Electromagnetism, given that it’s largely a bunch of math and esoteric equations. Homework may be shared, or even copied, but if you consider that the tests and quizzes are still done individually… does it really matter? If you copy someone’s homework, but still fail the test, what good does that do you? This results in copying homework not to avoid learning, but for a “let’s hurry up and finish” mentality. This is not truly cheating.
Similarly, “mental stimulants” are not cheating. Coffee is a stimulant known to boost mental activity and acuity, should that be banned from test-taking environments along with Concerta, Adderall, or any of the other ADD/ADHD drugs? If so, why not ban them from the work environment as well, since the school environment is intended to be in preparation for the person’s future job?
But banning “mental stimulants”, or even coffee, is just another example of archaic thinking. Until the current batch of 70-year old rich white men are removed from making policy, even the most mundane of modern advances will be viewed with undue scrutiny, as if the Devil Himself had appeared in their bathroom mirror. Computers allow people to work more efficiently and achieve more than previously possible, so why are they not banned, restricted, or screamed about?
The answer is obvious: how can it be cheating if you aren’t stealing or ingesting a substance?
posted on September 14th, 2008 at 12:50 pm by Kyle - Comments
In a nutshell, he finds that everyone is right. Official Chinese documents (a spreadsheet that was public, and then removed for what I’m sure were “innocent” reasons) point to one of the female gymnasts being 14 years old. Which is definitely less than the requirement of 16.
Since they’re used to “thinking” for their people, basic math should be easy…
I don’t want to seem like a broken record here, but there’s another glaring feature of China’s attempts to control reality: after the investigator looked at the same results from within the Chinese Google, the results (and their cached versions) were quickly removed.
Google China has openly admitted that they filter results for the Great Firewall of China, but there had been no mention of limits, definitions, or reaction times. The most disturbing part of all this is that Google bent to the Chinese will to help lie to the IOC and the rest of the free world… and did it in record breaking time.
My conclusion? Google China has the Chinese government more in their pocket (or maybe “in their throats” would be a better description of the depth of control) than they want people to believe.
And that’s just complete bullshit.
— —
Update (8/20/2008 2:45pm PST): As if all the lies and deceit weren’t enough… 5 U.S. bloggers have been detained by the Chinese government, for reporting on some Tibetan protests. And no-one saw this coming, right? *sarcastic/angry wink* See full details on RW/W
posted on August 20th, 2008 at 2:07 pm by Kyle - Comments
China believes the rest of the world is just as gullible, cow-eyed, and afraid to speak as their native population is. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone when they think problems are solved by just stating they are.
Age verification of Chinese athletes with only Chinese created documents? Check.
Proving there’s no pollution, just “mist”, in Beijing by merely saying so? Check.
Destroying your people’s homes and building walls around others, for “state purposes” related to the Olympics, and then pretending like you didn’t… when the rest of the world has proof? Check.
I love the Olympics, but the IOC has failed miserably. Allowing them to be held in China was the first mistake.
How could you even begin to believe all the promises made about the “progress” they’ll make before they’re held, when China hasn’t told a single truth to anyone in years?
How could you even imagine that Beijing’s pollution problem could be fixed/magically go away in a few short years, let alone when the government pretends like it’s not an issue?
Exactly my thoughts, Mr. Artist.
Their second mistake is to turn a blind eye to all of this with the intent of not upsetting their gracious hosts. Do some research and you’ll find some interesting stuff.
The IOC refuses to do anything about:
Chinese “women’s” gymnastics team’s age issue
the blatant lies about the levels of Beijing’s pollution
the human rights atrocities committed in preparation for this Olympics (house demolition, house quarantines, indefinite jailtime for protestors/”the unharmonious”, etc.)
journalistic freedom failure, thanks to watchdogs (both human and computer), the Great Firewall of China, and many other restrictions about what is “harmonious” and allowed
Probably what the state-sponsored toilet paper looks like.
It’s not like the world doesn’t have Internet connections, or watch non-Chinese media. The IOC is playing a game of “let’s hope they’re really stupid”, and it’s not working. Funny how China’s been doing the same thing for years…
posted on August 13th, 2008 at 9:35 am by Kyle - Comments
If you are even remotely involved in the “bleeding edge” of the ‘net, then you’ve probably heard of FriendFeed (I’m not linking to it, find that bag-of-echo yourself). But in case you haven’t, it’s a lifestream aggregator that went a step further and has in-house commenting on every item… it’s the lovebaby of the blogging world right now, and the giant echo chamber it’s a part of really makes me sick.
The pitchfork is intentional.
I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned previously that I stopped following my archnemesis TechCrunch (and now Mashable too) because it’s just a bunch of worthless crap, and the names “Twitter” and “FriendFeed” popping up every 3rd post was making me want to vomit. So imagine my surprise this morning when I caught this lovely piece on RW/W, one of my favorite blogs that has been teetering on the edge of echo chamberism.
A service that does what? Repipes FriendFeed? Oh, yes, it’s metadata on metadata!
Data, set a course for Sector 9. Warp speed.
Huh?
To make it simple, when you repipe, aggregate, and comment on an item from any one of those enticing things of Web 2.0 shininess, that’s building metadata around you and that item/object. But when you repipe that, add tags, etc. … that’s building metadata on top of, you know, pre-existing metadata.
Oh Yes Another Interface!
If there’s one thing we learned from Twitter, it’s that you can’t be successful without giving all your data away for free and allowing someone to completely circumvent your UI, and just use you as a database query endpoint. Totally.
Please! Use our phallic-looking API! We implore you!
Which makes complete sense then as to why you would need a filtering system of some sort to put on top of all this aggregating… I mean, honestly, who doesn’t want to see Robert Scoble’s latest Ode to My Awesomeness? Not via his blog though. I want to see it twice-removed from his blog! And I want to see his Twitter post telling everyone he’s got a new blog post!
Insanity
All of this crap is insanity, and I hope it ends tomorrow. And by “ends tomorrow”, I mean that all these investors will wake up 24 hours from now and realize they’ve wasted their money… the end result being they demand their money back from 95% of Web 2.0 under penalty of death.
posted on July 10th, 2008 at 6:56 am by Kyle - Comments
I just got off the phone with the “Lead” on a project over at Slide (very much like RockYou), who was supposed to gauge my technical abilities. He asked about my experience - fine. He then asked me a database question that I answered, but prefaced with “I’m not a db admin, and this isn’t what I want to do/was told the position entails”.
Next question was a “data sorting” one… I gave him a correct answer, but he wanted a faster one. I gave him one. But he wanted faster. Said I couldn’t think of any more, but this is the sort of thing I’d do some quick research and documentation digging on. The guy told me what he wanted… I immediately recognized it, and it was the type of thing that only academia and Google care about/use.
You need to teach your people about “interviewing”
The best part? He ended it there, and said I was “too junior” for what they were looking for. After asking me a n/a question, and then giving him an answer that was correct… just not “enough”.
And then he called the hiring manager and told her the same thing.
How the hell do you judge someone’s programming talents based on that? You can’t. Even if you’re going to talk by phone, it’s difficult. This sort of crap is what pisses me off about snooty nosed academia idiots… you don’t know everything unless you’ve used everything, and apparently that’s not a good answer.
Even if you’re awesome (like me), how can they know if they don’t bother to go any further than two questions - one of which you answered right, but docked on?
[aka “Funding != Good Idea” or “Funding Doesn’t Mean They’re Smart”]
I spoke to a recruiter via phone yesterday who was trying to interest me in getting a job with RockYou. When I politely declined, he wanted to know why, and I said something to the effect of “I have no interest in working for companies whose sole existence is, and always will be, dependent on outside funding and other people’s platforms…not to mention those without any real business plans or actual use value”.
His response? A resounding “I don’t think they would have gotten [insert large number here] of funding if they didn’t have value or a business plan.”
Hm. Yes. Quite.
So, out of that lovely event, comes this exciting installment of “Kyle telling you what should already be obvious.”
How VCs Work
Venture Capitalists are well known for investing in things that have either:
Already been funded
Already been proven successful
This isn’t true across the board, but when you look at the subset of VCs that invest in Internet-based “software” companies, the probability of truth gets much closer to 1.
Oh! Lookz! Ah cat copiez itzelfz!
Don’t believe me?
How many fully-funded Twitter clones are there?
Facebook clones?
“Digg killers”?
“Google [search] killers”?
Web 2.0 Is Not Business
Another widely acknowledged nugget of gold is that most “Web 2.0″ properties are not profitable. In fact, most of them have no idea how they could generate a revenue stream even remotely close to their operating costs, other than “oh, well we’ll just put ads on the site!”
Dr. Juice says “tell ‘em, boys”!
Good Idea? Yeah, Right.
One of my biggest pet peeves of the Internet at the moment is the “me too!” atmosphere. If one person does something that becomes popular (note: popular is not the same as successful), or gets a large round of funding, there’s immediately a gaggle of idiots who want to do the same thing, but with some twist.
Alot of good ideas don’t get funded, or even noticed. Why? Because no-one has done it yet, or it’s “too risky”. The big money would rather bet on something other people have bet on before, because it’s “tried and true”. So these groups of people with original ideas trundle on their own for awhile, and sometimes end up with a startup company that took years to put together while they cooked sausages at children’s festivals.
Where the true geniuses work.
Developer’s Platforms
Newsflash: basing your entire “business” (without revenue) around the whims of someone else is stupid, and roughly equivalent to swimming in the ocean while chewing on a giant electrical line that’s dangling from a satellite in orbit.
Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, etc. can change their APIs, data access levels, or platform structures at any time, for any reason. You want to develop a way to throw Zombie feet at your friend’s pig farms? Great. You want to create a company, and get funded, so you can do random “social activities” with other people through another company’s platform? Right.
Not entirely relevant.
One of the cardinal rules in running web software is that you should control as much of the user experience as possible. This is why Facebook has massive data centers instead of cloud-sourcing to someone like, say, Amazon S3… and you don’t see someone like Google betting the virtual farm on MySpace’s clunky architecture.
People Are Idiots
If you follow that motto, you’ll see the world clearly. Ok, maybe have alot less friends, but you’ll thank me for it. Why? Because once you realize that people are lazy and want to do the least work possible to get fame/success/fortune/whatever, you are able to see the giant flaws in their plans without falling into the potholes containing many fellow sheep.
There’s only two reasons why someone would assume that having funding equates to a “good idea”, a “great business”, a “revenue stream”, or “really smart people”:
They have no idea what they’re talking about
They’re an idiot
Game, set, and match.
Conclusion
So why, in all that is mighty, would anyone assume that an extravagantly funded Web 2.0 “software” company is going to exist in 5 years, be profitable, or even be remotely valuable to real people?
I have no idea.
p.s. If you want to cry and complain and argue that I “have no sources”, then use what little of that brain you may have to do some Google research yourself.
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Update (6/26/2008 4:00am PST): How fitting! Mashable just put up a story about a major Facebook Application “magically disappearing”, and not due to something the app developers did… it either got “accidentally removed” or banned. Hmmm… [see more]
Update (6/26/2008 1:15pm PST):Valleywag picked this up. Nice! And it seems that people agree with me…
posted on June 25th, 2008 at 2:46 pm by Kyle - Comments
