The Dangers of Success

Maybe I should title this post: The Dangers of Middle Management, Relative Success and Laziness, but that wouldn't fit in my narrow layout here.

I'm looking back over several years of my career and realizing that I've worked very hard to get where I am today. I'm young and, relatively speaking, I've gone a very long way. This is a good thing, because it means that I'm not only ahead of the curve, but I have much further to go.

This has its benefits. From the satisfaction of belong to, and making an impact on, the shape of new media to the ability to buy a nice seafood dinner when you feel like it without breaking the bank. These are two very different things - I'm proud that I've been able to accomplish them together but, somewhere along the line, this has a make or break point.

It could be argued that if I focused much more of my time on participating in our humble community, volunteering myself to decision-making boards and committees and building the next generation of applications and events with the aim of educating others to do the same that my impact would be greater felt and, in turn, my satisfaction more rewarding.

But then where would I make my money? I like those seafood dinners; if I ate beef I'd probably want to make it a steak. So, the other side of the equation: sell out.

I went to art school where I studied communication and journalism. I have fond memories of wandering campus and seeing painters by the fountain, dancers under the big banyan tree and musicians and actors out by the lake. Today I work in business development and if you ask any current student at my alma mater, they'd likely say that I've sold out.

I'm okay with that, like I said before, I like those seafood dinners.

Now, I'm faced with a dilemma. I don't fundamentally believe that by making yourself an industry expert, or "important" person, that opportunity will follow. I do think it's important to be an industry expert, if you're to be successful, but if your driving reason is business, well then, business is your primary objective.

One needs to make a personal decision on which path to take.

That's where Relative Success and Laziness come in. I'd like to run my own company again and, this time, I'd like to do it successfully. But, in order for that to work, I'm going to have to bust my ass making it reality. Why do that when I can bring home a decent, reliable check each week? Because I have to.

The problem with Relative Success is that it's easy to accept. I suppose that every entrepreneur is faced with this at some point. Taking that leap is a hard thing to do. So my question is, how do you prepare for that?

Fortune Agrees With Me

I've said before that I don't think MySpace is going anywhere partly because it's so very different from Facebook. MySpace = content, Facebook = software. Fortune agrees.

Comparing MySpace and Facebook is inevitable because of their dominance in the business, but their differences are profound.

Facebook is intended to be used only to connect you to the people you already know offline; it's a "utility," to use the preferred label of its founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. Its user interface is clean and tidy, and the whole vibe is efficiency and getting things done.

MySpace, on the other hand, is a mishmash of modern media - rich with music and video and comedy. It's like a rock & roll club - chaotic, loud, and packed. Many user profiles are florid and flamboyant, with flashing text and music that starts playing as soon as you arrive.

"We're focused on helping people express themselves and do the connection and discovery game," says Steve Pearman, one of Anderson's top deputies in designing the service. "If you want pink blinking text on a black background, who am I to say it's wrong?"

At MySpace you can befriend not only anybody but anything. A dog can have a profile, and so can AT&T. This looseness has powerful effects, very different from anything on Facebook. MySpace became the de facto home page for the music industry because its members could befriend bands. Any brand, political candidate, nonprofit, even government, can create a profile and start adding friends.

Actually, No. I Don't Love Joost.

You can get to this site via a few URL's. Tellmeyes.com used to be a site with my art - paintings and the like - Andrewbaisley.com is obviously the main URL, but you can also get here via ILoveJoost.com.

ILoveJoost.com was registered mostly as a joke between friends. I don't take serious issue with Joost. The idea is right, the funding is there, the employees are great, but really, who the heck watches TV on their computer?

Joost isn't stupid. They know a computer screen doesn't compare to a television screen and I'm sure it's something they're working on (I'm not just assuming, mind you). Until this problem is solved, however, they're going to have a hard time gaining much traction.

The Seamless Web

Fred Wilson, a managing partner at Union Square Ventures, recently posted on his blog, A VC, about an OS X issue he was having. I made a comment that I found it funny that he would post an OS X question on his blog, which is primarily focused on venture capital. Actually, in all fairness, Fred posts a variety of topics on A VC, but that's not my point here.

Fred responded in a second post, saying:

Andrew asked why I posted this question on my blog instead of a forum designed for this kind of question. Well first, I figured there were a lot of readers who knew the answer. And I was right. There are some super smart people who read this blog. And second, by posting on my blog, I was able to post a couple screen shots of the problem that made it easier for me to articulate the issue.

This got me thinking about this idea of a seamless web. The idea of destination sites, niche portals, niche social networks, specialty content, etc has gained a lot of momentum and popularity in the past few years. We call it the "long tail," but I think it's a flawed system that facilitates the segregation information.

I would like to see an Internet void of landing pages. The idea is, in Fred's example, if you were someone interested in answering questions about OS X, those questions would naturally gravitate to you. Where it comes from, whether the Apple Support Forums or A VC, shouldn't make any difference. A content agnostic Internet, I suppose you could say, is my vision of Web 3.0.

There are already meaningful steps in this directions. Aggregation is a hot buzz word these days and it's what makes services like Google, PageFlakes and countless other aggregators a success. So, niche information will still exist, but it'll exist for you, not for a landing page or branded service.