You Are Not a Ninja

Children, the happy heyday of cute, irreverent titles is over. Your startup failed, your VC dried up, your dreams of being bought by Google vanished. Even the speaking circuit you carved out in tiny ad clubs in rural areas is coming to an end. Update that resume and hit the bricks, dicks.

Serial Entrepreneur

Somewhere right now, a snake-oil salesman is devising his next killer app, one that will "revolutionize social media as we know it" or some such crap. Ten years ago, he was going to "take the dot com world by storm!" with SEO. He will survive, because bullshit is his art, and he knows how to sling it.

 

Click for the large.

(Yes, there are people out there calling themselves "serial entrepreneurs." That's like telling a venture capitalist, "I can't stick with anything for too long. I like to set it up, run away with some cash and then watch it crash because it was a dumb idea all along.")

Kids! Accept a Ride from a Creepy Old Man in a Van

Have you heard of this weirdness called Omegle?. They have the very catchy slogan, "Talk to Strangers!" According to Wikipedia, "The site was created by 18-year old Leif K-Brooks of Brattleboro, Vermont and was launched on March 25th, 2009.

I expect this young adventurer who calls himself Leif is looking to place banners all over the site and then sell his peculiar invention to Google. He's got the stupid name thing down, all he needs now is some venture capital.

I tried it. Here's what a stranger and I had to chat about:


I think this was known as a CompuServe chat room back in the 90s.

I Don't Usually Jump Onboard With New Apps

But Kwooky looks pretty promising. It's got everything a Web 2.0 app needs. Nonsensical, made-up name, silly, quirky font, dumb tagline and the all-important "beta" designation. What Kwooky does no one is certain, since I just made it up after searching to make sure the URL Kwooky.com was available. But that's all it takes. Now I just need some developers and some venture capital and I can sell this idea to Google in about a year.

Stupid ideas keep getting funding, and I won't single out the ones I find stupid, but here's a clue: if the "About Us" page contains super-hip, irreverent bios of a bunch of guys with titles like "ninja" who all reside in diverse locations, then I would keep my venture capital away from those dudes.

Then ask yourself, "Would I use this app? Does it do something that another app doesn't? Is it maybe just some reverse-engineered ripoff? Can I live without it? Will it change the way I do business?"

Also, do a little research into the principals of the start-up. If they can't seem to hold down a job for more than a year, it's a good bet they're probably just ne'er-do-well punks looking for a fast buck.

Cutting off the Conversation

Here’s the formula for the new New Media website.

Create an idea surrounding user generated content. Cite YouTube as your proof that this will work. Make a logo. Put the word “beta” under the logo. Get together an experienced management team. Gather venture capital and a board of advisors. Launch with as much press as you can garner, “seed” comments on forums and blogs, monitor buzz and make comments on blogs where people are badmouthing you.

Bill posted about ExpoTV, which I had to see. ExpoTV contains what it calls "short, unbiased, consumer-generated videos of products and services." Here we see Hunted339 talking about Axe Bodyspray. Hunted339 tells us, “This smells soooooo good.” Awesome testimonial, Hunted339. I'm on my way to CVS now for a case of it.

Prediction for ExpoTV: You will all be looking for jobs soon and your investors will wonder where they went wrong. I can tell you. With the promise of paying your video uploaders “up to $10,” you are encouraging less than honest reviews of products. What kind of money can I make if I get on your site and say, “This Ford has been nothing but hassles from day one, and I’ll never buy another Ford again.”? My guess is not much. Why am I going to believe some paid amateur reviewing a product? (And reviewing it very poorly.) I know, I know. It's still in "beta." You've got some "issues" to work through "going forward," but you are "confident" that "this model" will succeed as you help "empower" consumers.

Here's the only part you got right: people love to see themselves on TV. They will upload videos of themselves. And they will scramble like hungry squirrels if you hang a dollar in front of them for that video.

This is not where advertising is heading – and if it is, we’re closer to Idiocracy than I thought.

Prediction: A defender of ExpoTV will make a comment on this post. That’s part of the new New Media. If they don’t, expect that venture capital to dry up even faster.