Archive for March, 2008
Ferrari Dream
I usually don’t like to think selfishly, and I’m not normally one to have materialistic desires. While I’ll admit I do love stylish clothes, and technology gadgets, and rarely pay full price for clothing, and the gadgets I do buy have to be justified fairly well before I lay down the plastic.
I had a dream that I bought a Ferrari last night though. It was pretty sweet. It was used in a race, and was a little quirky, but I really loved it. I think the cool thing about the dream was the feeling of going fast, more so than spending the money. I’m not much of a dream analyst, but I’m pretty sure euphoric feelings, and going fast, or flying are pretty good signs.
Signs Of The Bubble
According to this msnbc article, AOL will be buying Bebo for the price of $850 Million USD. Bebo, a social networking site that is best know in Britain and Europe, has a membership of 40 million users. This obviously works out to about $20 per user. My estimate is that each of those users would have to average 20,000 page views, or 2000 hours of site use before AOL would make that money back. Hard to say what kind of growth Bebo is experiencing, but this still seems as though it’s on the expensive side for a site that most North Americans haven’t heard of.
Coding All Nighter
I’m about to do something I haven’t done in years. I’m planning on building something tonight, and I’ll be staying up all night, because that is when my focus and drive is at its best. I have a thermos of herbal tea, some snacks, good music, and my MacBook.
I maybe haven’t had this much excitement for building a site since, maybe HighDriving.com (I still can’t believe I let that domain slide). What I’m working on is pretty much just a proof of concept at this point, but if things go well tonight I’ll be posting some more info by the weekend. I’ve done most of the night all nighters before, but have never before planned to do it. If this is a success, I hope it will become part of a fairly common practice of planning through the week, and pulling an all-nighter on the weekend to get as much off a TODO list as possible.
Also, I’m starting a new job next week, and I haven’t really done as much skill sharpening as I had hoped to have done this week. This will maybe serve to make up for some lost time.
The Day Internet Asploded 2.0
I think the web is on the verge of another bubble. An explosion of new money into the industry by existing leaders, and investors trying to ride the next wave. The reason I’m thinking this will happen soon, is the sudden influx of internet aware spenders. The mid-20 somethings that are both net savvy, and have credit cards.
During the last bubble, a lot of the money made was fed off of peoples ignorance of what the internet was. Countless web firms cashed in on business owners fear of being left behind, and ignorance with regards to what developing, and hosting a static web page actually cost. And that was only client services. Many big sites sold for multi-million dollars, and investors eagerly fronted cash for super bowl ads, for the chance to be the next Amazon. Consumers were aware of the web, because it was forced down their throats, but in the end, users spent time only on a few trust worthy sites (ie. Yahoo).
Here is the reason I think the web, and I hesitate to use the term, but web 2.0, is taking off. I already mentioned the influx of tech savvy spenders, but it is also that people are far more willing to experience more. Where it was Yahoo and Amazon, it is now, Digg, Facebook, You Tube, Twitter, Google (not just search), and more. One problem here is that this new generation of web users are seemingly less likely to be ad clickers. So while a new site could likely get new traffic really quick, the potential to find advertisers, and sustainable revenue seem less likely.
The cost of building a site has never been lower, and the cost of attracting profitable traffic has never been higher. This is why it is common to see sites with high traffic being sold for insane amounts, and it is why I think we are on the verge of seeing investors putting up big money to anything that looks like it could get huge traffic. The reason I think it’s still going to be a bubble is that right now the common idea is that traffic equals money, but I think that that business model is severely flawed, and deep down investors know it.
Finished BSG Season 3 Last Night
<maybe spoilers> And what made the experience even more awesome is that I had been listening to a song from the soundtrack several times throughout the day, and it ended up being stuck in my head. The song was “All Along The Watchtower”, and I had been humming it to myself. Watching the final episode and seeing some of the characters humming the song in a similar fashion to what I had been doing through out the day gave me shivers. This was a song I knew I already loved, but now seeing what it meant in the season 3 finale, all I can say is “holy frack, that’s awesome”. </maybe spoilers>
I still have Razor to look forward to, but I have a feeling waiting for season 4 will be agonizing to say the least. There are so many questions I have. Perhaps it’s no reason to get excited, but there’s too much confusion, and I can’t get no relief.
Blogging For Profit?
It’s seems to me like we’re hitting the next .com boom. And I think anyone who’s spent any time looking into how to make easy money, or money online, has heard about blogging for profit. I’ve never doubted the possibility, I just have serious doubts that is is anywhere as easy as anyone says it is. It seems as though all the people claiming they have 6 figure income from 4, or 5 blogs, and only work one day a week have something to sell. Usually an eBook telling people how they can also make a 6 figure income from 4, or 5 blogs, while only working one day a week. And I don’t doubt that they are actually making that sort of money, but perhaps a good portion of that money is from their book, and the 3 of their blogs promising tidbits of how to earn easy money.
Here’s my thoughts. All of these blogs rely on Google AdSense to earn money, and most of them pay a fair amount of money on Google AdWords to promote their blogs, and eBooks. It’s both a popular subject to advertise, and a popular ad to click. Making free money on the web is still one of the most clicked on contextual ads out there as far as I know. And it’s more about the demographic. People who have spent any considerable time online have seen these ads, and know what AdWords are. We don’t click on them, and we know how easy it is to get in a seeking information loop, of getting a tidbit of information, and clicking the next ad that looks the most promising to move on. And we also know of, or have a blog, and understand how big of a hassle it is to get traffic, and more importantly, profitable traffic. These are two very different things in my opinion.
Free money is still possible. Maybe. But when even the people who have the skills to make the next digg.com need a truckload of luck to make a penny on the internet, I have a hard time seeing anyone using IE6, and a free blogger.com account can retire off the internet.
Creative People Do Not Make Good Employees
I think that creative individuals are not willing to give their finite time and energy very cheaply, for something that will only get them approval. So if the approval fuel isn’t satisfactory, people tend to get bored and complacent very quickly. I think creative people will tend to start fires to bring some risk and excitement to their uncreative jobs. If the game you’re playing isn’t big enough, you’ll do something to screw it up, just to make it interesting. Meaning you’ll slack off, and leave all your tasks till the last second, just to get a rush of adrenaline, and satisfaction.
I find it so disheartening in the corporate world, that the gift of being well rounded is as undervalued as it is. The ability to learn new skills very quickly, and be a very well rounded individual, is extremely important when it comes to becoming a successful entrepreneur. But, when you’re hired to do a task within a corperation, you are asked to specialize in a subset of those skills, and you will always peak very quickly, and begin to stagnate those other muscles that aren’t being used. This, for me, is when I began to feel frustrated, and feel like a loose cannon, even though that is not a natural personality trait for me.
This sort of paints a picture of how I’ve felt very recently at a job, that I had very high hopes for. But I think there are many differences between looking for approval, and looking for appreciation in what you do. I think if approval is what creates security in a persons life, appreciation is what creates the passion. Like, it’s if you were at the most amazing concert of your life, and somebody told you that the music was terrible. You’d probably laugh at the idiot, and keep on rocking out. Where I think approval really stems from insecurity.
I think appreciation is the fuel for the creative. I plan on looking for more of it in my life.