We all know the old adage about success being defined by who you know, not what you know, but in the online world I think it is completely different. Well not completely different, but there can be an addendum to it that will read:
It is not what you know, but who you know and if you don’t know anyone then it becomes how you make yourself look.
In the online space you can talk about anything and make yourself look like a genius. For the first 2 years of this site I wrote posts that deemed me an expert in design by many (dead serious), but all I really did was give my opinion. How many other “experts” are out there solely based on their writings and not their actions? VCs probably head the top of this bunch because they have money and for some reason being rich (many times attributed to luck) also means being knowledgeable in how to make more money or what kind of business you need to run to become rich.
We were once told by a VC (well-known guy) that if we didn’t plan on making $100M in revenue a year then there was no point in talking to anyone. Fair enough, the guy has experience and is well-known so obviously he knows what he is talking about. But then one day I got to thinking on why I even thought that way. Was it because of his blog? Was it because of a book he wrote? What had this person actually done that made me believe that he was the end-all, be-all of VC knowledge and business?
Looking at his VC firm and what they have invested in and started I couldn’t find one successful startup in the bunch, but people run to this guy for advice. Amazing. That’s when I realized that in this online world you can position yourself as anybody you want to depending on how you present yourself. That’s how Michael Arrington can turn into the guru of Web 2.0 and Seth Godin is not only perceived as a genius at marketing, but business in general.
The thing is there are so many different places online that people can find out about us that depending on where they go they will form an opinion of you. If you only know me through here then you get one opinion of me which might contradict what you see from my social networking profiles that have me hanging out with girls and relaxing in a club.
So although you want to say that you have to be true to yourself and you should be able to portray yourself any way you want, you also must realize that you control many times how others perceive you and if you are okay with that then good. If not, there is a reason for it. However, don’t always believe what others are saying just because and don’t think someone knows what they are talking about simply because they published a book.
Every once in a while I come across a comment about 9rules saying how the community is either dying or isn’t what it used to be. “Dying” in this case usually means the original spirit of 9rules is gone where we were simply a link directory pointing people to sites with great content. Then we evolved into more of a portal where you could get snippets of content, but still find the great content. Following that came 9rules Notes and my.9r, which allowed anyone on the web to take part in 9rules in one form or another. We didn’t die or bury our mission, we simply evolved to continue to grow and survive.
But that is how people feel many times when they are involved with a company since the beginning. How many people dreaded to hear that Google was working on webmail or an office suite? Why couldn’t they just stick to search without any ads? There is a huge difference between improving your company and sticking to your goals and simply changing direction, but we all know nobody stays stagnant and survives for very long.
What’s interesting though is that during these times you usually find a new competitor starting to make waves. When Yahoo became more than a search engine and site directory, Google was able to step in with a simplistic design. Google is starting to do what Yahoo did during the late 90’s adding more and more features to their arsenal, but in a surprising twist keeping the main page about search. That makes it very difficult for anyone to take them over in the search arena while they can still put pressure on others in various fields.
Sony and Microsoft became so captivated by trying to make a device that became your everything for your living room while Nintendo just stepped in and did one thing well. However, how will Nintendo continue to grow in the future? Will there be a time where they also allow their device to play DVDs or add peripherals that can let you stream music?
You see no matter what you do as a company there will come a time where some people don’t like what is going on because they have grown accustomed to what they like. However, if you are staying with the same goals that got you there in the first place everything should work out just fine.
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About a month ago Bryan Veloso let his woman post an ominous message talking in vague words about how something has happened with his site. When someone writes something like this it is natural for friends, fans and family to be worried and you could even see the worry on 9rules. We at 9rules emailed Bryan because we are always concerned when we read about something happening with one of our members. We got no response. So we emailed again…no response.
Then more and more people started to wonder what was going on with Bryan. Being worried even further I emailed Dan Rubin (his design partner I guess) to see what the deal is. Dan didn’t wish to give me any answers and I can respect that, but I still wanted to know what was going on. We still had no answer.
It even got to the point where 9rules members banded together to created a I Love Avalonstar site.
Then Bryan himself posted a message on his site and again it was vague. Again it played with the emotions of the people who look up to him. Again it kept people in the dark, but you know what? He could still Twitter that he was going to DDR. He couldn’t respond to emails or let people know that things are okay, but finding the time to do other things was not a problem at all.
Then we got the final message that his site would return on May 1. People looked forward to it. Then they had to wait. Wait some more and finally it launched. I could care less about the design. What I care about is the disrespect shown by him towards the people who worried. The disrespect shown towards the people who care. For some reason he gets the gold star for coming out with a new design, but for no reason has to apologize to anyone for the idiotic commotion he caused.
What’s even more sickening is that nobody has even called him out for it. Instead we get people patting him on the head telling him it’s okay that he isn’t happy with his redesign and we all have to fight personal demons (last I checked it was just a personal blog design, not a failed cure for cancer). What if someone in your life disappeared and only left vague messages and then came back only to tell you they have a new outfit?
Although Bryan is no longer in 9rules (no content can do that to ya) this has nothing to do with it. I’m sure he could care less whether he was in or not. This is about respect. This is about being a man and opening your eyes to the world. No doubt people will hate me for writing something about someone who is so loved, but I just don’t get it. This is a grown man acting like a child and loving every moment of the attention that he is getting and showing no respect to the people that got him to where he is at.
I noticed it a few days ago as well, my heart dropped when I found a plain white page, with a very vague explanation of where Bryan’s site has gone. I guess its one of those things that will keep us in suspense until we hear the bad news.
I’m going to take a wild guess, it wasn’t that bad because the message his wife/girl/fiance/whatever left was perfectly styled in that Veloso kind of way. I don’t write this out of anger towards Bryan, but out of disgust at the lack of respect afforded to everyone that reached a hand out to help him and was turned away.
The response, was nothing short of overwhelming. Emails, twitters, text messages, voicemails and even a website—all wondering about Avalonstar and making sure my family and I were alright. When I emereged, I got a glimpse of how much this community means to me, and how that bond is mutual. So to start off, I want to thank everybody that kept an eye out for Jen, the kitties and I and to everybody who helped me through this process.
Just for the record this past April, has been the longest month in recent memory. The reasons behind all of this have been ruled by rumor and speculation. However, with Avalonstar in its current state, I feel no need to communicate anything outside the bounds of what will be written today.
Thanks man, we really didn’t need you to communicate.
Making the decision to do what I did to Avalonstar proved to be one of the hardest of my career.
…
Open your eyes to the world young buck. It’s just a site and if that’s the hardest decision of your career, you ain’t been through shit in your life yet.
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I’m sure you are well aware of the disaster that is Digg at this moment. There was a story Monday that posted a code for the HD-DVD encryption. Digg was asked to take the down the stories and apparently they prevented any further stories from reaching the homepage and have begun banning users. The problem is, how do you ban thousands of people at once that conspire to work against you?
Have a look at this screenshot taken at the time of this writing:
As you can see the whole frontpage is nothing but HD-DVD stories now and really there isn’t anything Digg can do about it besides take the entire site down. Why? Because it seems nobody is Digging any other stories and in fact are burying any stories that don’t have anything to do with HD-DVD.
Digg put the power of its site in the hands of the users and by trying to take the power away it only infuriated them. What’s funny though is that Digg was in a way trying to help keep up the site that they love by following the orders of the AACS. In doing so many people feel as though their rights were violated so who is right and who is wrong?
Running a community is a fine balance between making the users feel empowered and doing what is right for the site. We come across such situations a lot over at 9rules and fortunately have done pretty well. For everyone that thought user-controlled content sites was the wave of the future you better think twice. It will be interesting to see how the site looks in a couple of hours and what the aftermath of all this will be. Almost funny that just last week I asked what happens when Digg plateaus and not too long ago what would you do if you were the CEO of Digg.
A great opportunity for Digg competitors to try and step up.
UPDATE: Cashmore has more (shit did that rhyme) on this.
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