I put together a piece for change.org this weekend on dealing with rejection. I’ve been meaning to write on the topic for a few months - I think you can tell a lot about someone based on how he/she handles rejection.
Remember: if everyone wanted to drink your kool-aid, it would be water.
Back in April, I attended Tim Hwang’s XORCon and saw MIT undergrad Colin McSwiggen give a talk called “Is Memetic Engineering Real?“. Last week at Ignite NYC I started thinking about it again (not to mention, the Xhibit story is pretty amazing).
So. Is there money to be made from memes?
Rocketboom.com founder Andrew Baron apparently thinks so. According to newteevee, Baron’s new video venture mag.ma aims to be THE viral video tracker on the web. I love analytics just as much as anyone, so I’m looking forward to all the sweet, sweet data that he claims mag.ma will deliver. I am already obsessed with bit.ly, and I’d love a more thorough overview of a video’s stats beyond the view count.
I think there are two key ways to capitalize on internet memes:
1. Leaders and followers. I hear a lot from advertising people about the identification of leaders and followers on the web. Sure, you can identify leading websites by their traffic and price accordingly. But the identification of leader and follower personalities in any sort of scalable way is much harder (ie, who’s the most popular girl in this high school that I can give a free pair of jeans to in the hopes of selling lots more?). That is part of the reason why advertising is so hard on social networking sites. Sure, you might have 1000 friends, but how highly do they regard your opinion? How much influence do you really have?
One could suggest that by tracking memes you can identify these “leaders”. Knowing true inflencers in a space as vast and complicated as the web is very valuable data for advertisers.
2. Collectibles. What’s the difference between a meme and a fad? I think of fads as physical. If a concept has proven itself digitally - engineering a crossover to something physical could be pretty powerful. We’re all waiting for the next slap bracelet.
Seriously though, if you know someone that’s currently working on an Xhibit face magnet for my car, please let me know.
In my Web 3.0 class last spring I heard the story of Six Degrees. Six Degrees was a social network that started in 1997 and shut down in 2001. It was one of the first online social networking sites and according to this screenshot (thanks Way Back Machine) they had over 2 million users in 1999:
We spent a lot of time in class analyzing why Six Degrees didn’t survive the dotcom bust. Social networks were going to be huge! The power of the network effect would crush new competitors!
…and yet they didn’t make it.
I think the demise of Six Degrees shows the importance of timing. How many pre-youtube youtubes tried and failed because most people didn’t have broadband and couldn’t support streaming video? There are tons of theories out there that speculate on which products are widely adopted, but more and more I am realizing that timing is one of the most compelling factors.
Even though I REALLY am not that into the book Eat, Pray, Love, I keep coming back to Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED talk from earlier this year on creativity. She spend a good few minutes talking about a poet who used to run in from the fields to take down her poems.
Capturing ideas is really important - absolutely - but I am finding that one of the most valuable steps in the idea to reality process is the feedback you get from people across the spectrum - people you deeply respect and people you think are total idiots. Often the most obstinate haters are the people that can help your idea evolve most drastically.
I have been intensely exploring the New York tech scene for a scant five days now (school’s out for summer!), so you can ONLY IMAGINE how intrigued I am by this week’s second-annual “Internet Week New York“.
In a genius move by the Mayor’s office, the city has crowdsourced the actual planning of the week’s events to the local technology scene. This is great for the city (less manpower required to pull off a week-long geekfest) and beneficial to curious folks trying to get a feel for the technology community in New York - analyzing the list of events gives a pretty thorough landscape of what New York can offer to digital dilettantes looking to enhance their knowledge of the internets.
Although there will be a solid group of out-of-towners around, I see this week as a by-NYC for-NYC event. That said, the paradox here is as follows: event organizers will likely put together an event that exhibits their strengths, meaning the events this week will serve to highlight and reinforce the strengths - which I see as content creation, advertising and investment - of the NYC tech community.
THE GOOD - Content Content Content.
If you believe “content is king” - and who doesn’t these days? - there will be ample opportunity to juice up your knowledge on content development and execution from the content capital of the universe. New Yorkers, old-media and new-media alike, respect the good stuff like nowhere else.
Check out content-related events here, here and here.
THE NOT-SO-GOOD - Where are the Developers?
There are few events that involve actually learning how to code and/or build stuff (exceptions here and here). From what I can tell, the best way to lock down job security if you work in print media/traditional advertising is to beef up your knowledge of the digital side. If you’re a content ninja, wouldn’t having a working knowledge of rails, php, python or even wordpress provide a huge advantage?
What I think Internet Week lacks are these “gateway” classes for the throngs of old-media types who are ready to embrace the future of digital media. If New York really wants to establish itself as a technology hub, there needs to be a REALLY low barrier to entry for people interested in actually learning to build new media.
So where are the coding parties? Please let me know - business students don’t usually get invited.
