Category: Branding/Buzz/Viral

Why do I love holiday weekends? Because the major media goes home and there is a ton of great blog posts out there based on people’s core thoughts everywhere I look (including my blog) instead of the major media discussion follow on. In fact, why does David Sifry of Technorati make the mistake of classifying these big media sites as blogs at all if they don’t allow trackbacks, comments and true discussion? David you should really fix that.

What Scoble talks about in his post along with a cast of great comments is interesting and all too accurate. But the notes about lack of retail investor involvement are encouraging, I don’t think we have Silicon Valley restraint to thank for that I think we have Enron and Sarbanes-Oxley (higher cost of doing IPOs and being public now).

In Flickr doesn’t suck, the Don McAskill post states, “Companies triumph over market leaders all the time. They do it by innovating and executing brilliantly.” What a refreshing thought process. Sad to see it on a site discussing 19 zillion unnecessary photo sharing sites that gets tons of traffic discussing this topic, but refreshing nonetheless. So, maybe people are focusing on the businesses that tech guys are building and hyping because they are missing the critical element – business skills, search engine optimization and related expertise. A product manager is someone with a combination of business and technical skills in every successful company I’ve ever been a part of, I doubt this rule will change. People need to think bigger than “Google will buy us”.

What is wrong with Frothy Bubble 2.0? It’s not based on basic business principles like customer satisfaction, unmet needs and workable business models. I can spot this stuff a mile away when I talk. For example, when I went to Search Engine Strategies last month, one Web 2.0 person I know asked me, “Why are you going to such a boring conference, dude?” That sentence wouldn’t be right without the dude would it? Well, I had the time of my life and I learned a ton of great stuff to boot! Meanwhile his project is $100,000 in expenses and no revenue in sight.

So what is there to do? How about looking at some of the business plans I’ve seen that make sense, have revenue models and either go into new markets or attack fundamental basic flaws in the existing search engines? Naw, that would take real work, less photos at parties and it would take brainstorming and thinking outside of the box.

Think about it, pick up the phone if you have a real idea or you are an angel investor – especially if you are one that doesn’t even own a camera – then I really want to hear from you!!!