Michael, Re: 'me too', you say:
"ATHM overpaid for a "me-too" portal of very
questionable long-term strategic value."
While I happen to agree with you on your 'me too'
observation, in all fairness one must also acknowledge
that much (most?) of what has been responsible for the
inflation of 'net bubble is largely founded on this and related
principles. Purveyors of this space agree for the most part
on the strategic direction, but they're sometimes oceans
divided within their own minds about tactical approaches,
and what they should be doing to earn their keep.
There will surely be a garbage heap of failures when we look
back in a couple of years. One could also argue that many
other hair-triggered (-brained) decisions have worked out
for the better, and we will read that this is the way of
Internet innovation. Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
Innovation differs from speculation and marketecture - the
latter not so ironically abbreviated, S&M - since innovation
does not always go hand in hand with S&M. Therefore,
these two qualities should not be granted the same latitude of
license. Innovation affects the progress of the mind and how
we define our existence, while S&M affects investors'
pocketbooks, and in some cases, their very self esteem. But
I digress again.
How do you separate the two, when the model demands
that you "try it, if it's broke (sic) fix it?" This is the mantra
that has been used *extremely* successfully by the netheads
in the development of new protocols and erstwhile
non-existent dimensions of features and functionality on the
'net.
But the same principle has, at the same time, also been
adopted as an undue form of license by some executives
for many of their ill-advised (and by any other measure of
normalcy, even in this space), hair-brained, antics. S&M.
Portal hype, in any event, is something which also evades
me, given what I feel lies over the horizon in the
not-too-distant future in the way of personalized front ends.
I think we will soon see these GUIs facilitated through
inference mechanisms and other product offerings, but that's
neither here nor there.
One of the perceived problems, as seen by 'nut company
officials, is that there is no time for diligence and
experimentation. This notion has the effect of inhibiting or
eliminating entirely what were once considered normal
measures taken in the evaluation process of any product or
service, prior to release.. They argue, and perhaps justifiably
so, that one cannot scale a laboratory model for observation
and perform what-if analyses in this space. Rather, one must
commit resources and go live with the real thing and just see
how it works out.
[All the while, of course, the underlying precepts upon which
the original notions were conceived (it sometimes makes
very little difference if they were hair-brained notions
conceived during a weekend drinking binge, or strokes of
genius conceived in Aspen during a think tank conference)
have shifted some 90 to 135 degrees, during the product
release period.]
Here we see missiles darting through the true fabric of the
Internet (the mind) under what has been described as the
Rules of Internet Time, so we see some initiatives that
succeed, and some that don't, all being played out in real
time.
Some initiatives may actually succeed due to their own
errors in forecasting, whereby they were off the mark going
in, and through some means assisted through serendipity,
their trajectories mysteriously align with the trajectories of
the unknown.
And some succeed simply because of who is doing it, and
the weight of a blind following behind them, where we see
some of the more profound forms of guru-ish affections,
when folks plunk down their hard-worked-for earnings on
what is sometimes little more than a whim.
In many instances these exercises are without merit or any
benefit of historical precedent, whatsoever, much less the
vision afforded by foresight. And when they succeed, we
call the principals geniuses. When they fail, like my beloved
Brooklyn Dodgers or yore, they're nothing but bums, spelled
with a lower case b. And so it goes...
Regards, Frank Coluccio |
