Valleywag
NICK DOUGLAS — To everyone who was "there for the first bubble," let me speak on behalf of those of us who weren't (and those who were and don't need to keep yammering about it. We get it. You're old and experienced and SO OVER this retro fad called making money off the Internet. Now shut up and let us make some.
Let's be clear who I'm talking to. It's those of you who were in Silicon Valley or (better) New York's Silicon Alley and took part in the dot-com boom, and you know all about how stupid it was, everyone running with the bulls, though you've no explanation for why, then, you ran along with the rest of the fatheaded tourists and watched your friends get gored. You're the ones who KNOW that every startup will fail, that MySpace was a waste of News Corp's cash, that no one makes money off a wiki. Any time one of the rest of us mentions an obvious, actual waste of money (PodTech anyone?), you treat it as proof that the whole industry is doomed for collapse.
I was one of you, sure. For about half a freaking year. It didn't take me long to realize I was dead wrong about the fate of YouTube. And I was never so blind as to write off the Flickrs and Jotspots and Diggs of the world as anything REMOTELY resembling Pets.com.
You pissers, you know why you're here talking to us? Because you fucked it up. You didn't get your piece of the pie before the bubble was out, and now all the time you WOULD have spent throwing your money around, you instead spend on the free pursuit of comparing everything to "the last time."
And you know what that doesn't do? It doesn't make everyone who just moved into town go "Oops, guess my hopes and ambitions are for naught, and the future can only repeat the past! Thank you oh sir for you deep wisdom of TEN WHOLE YEARS! Teach me sensei, that I may also piss on the achievements of others!"
No, what it does is make all of us feel like the Big Lebowski, the Dude, shouting "God Walter, why is everything a travesty with you?" New adventures are happening around you and you can only deal with it by comparing it to 'Nam! You're whiny Walter Sobchak, muttering "calmer'n you are" after waving a gun around the bowling alley. But this has nothing to do with 'Nam.
Or you're like Uncle Whatever in Napoleon Dynamite, reminiscing about how great you COULD have been if you hadn't torn a tendon or quit before you vested or whatever the hell bad decision or accident you blame for your pitiful washed-up existence. And what do you do to change that around? You sell Tupperware. You buy a time machine off the Internet. You putz around at OUR conferences and OUR geek dinners and you titter at all the people with the guts to try and fail.
Well you go do that, and we'll laugh with you about our silly startups named Twitter and Meebo and our arrogant videoblogging community and Justin.tv, who may be a dick, but he's OUR dick. We'll laugh. We'll laugh all the way to the billion-dollar buyout. And when the dust settles and it's time to make the fuck-you money say "fuck you," we'll see who looks stupid.
Nick Douglas writes for Valleywag, Blogebrity, and Look Shiny. He's looking for angel funding and a Jack and ginger ale. Photo: Scott Beale, Laughing Squid
Comments
Watch out Nick, PodTech is coming for you! http://snapshot.compete.com/valleywag.com+podtech.net?metr...
Speaking of which, you linked to me, what, eight times in the past four weeks. My logs only show about 800 visitors. Damn that's pathetic. I thought EVERYONE read Valleywag. Now I know the truth.
Oh, and you should disclose that we turned down your request to sponsor your private site. Shakedown money? Sponsor us or we deride you on our site? Yeeehhhaaaa!
Oh, and I survived the bubble. And, no, I won't link to you. :-)
Well said, Nick. More rants like this one please. Make the next one about how people say "Web 2.0 is dead, the new hot shit is Web 3.0" when most of us aren't done with 2.0 yet.
Your entire podcast network is smaller than our little two-writer site? Shouldn't you have kept that quiet?
This is a Scoble imposter, right?
EVERYONE reads Valleywag. Just no one clicks from here to Scoble.
Hmmm, the more you talk about Scoble the lower both of our ratings go! http://snapshot.compete.com/scobleizer.com+valleywag.com?m...
Nick, I think I like Valleywag best when it's your well-written editorials. And I couldn't agree more with the sentiment here. Bravo.
Scoble, you are like the devil. Doesn't matter when or where, just say your name and you appear. Anyway I would rather click on goat.cx than any link I know goes to one of your hell of annoying sites/posts/whatever.
I find you so sexy when you write. But, this article started out really good and then it sucked because the reality is, we all saw 50 or 60,000 people lose their jobs overall and the market sucked ass for years where you didn't know if you were going to be able to retire someday or not. So, I agree with the mindset but I disagree with the rest of this. And, really, we only all say it because the newbies are THAT annoying.
Who the fuck is Scoble? I work on Sand Hill Road, and I constantly hear the VC Partners and Assoc's talking about what they've read on Valleywag, and I constantly see it up on their screens...
So my guess, lots of readers.. just none interested in clicking on your link..
As far as traffic goes, no need to guess: our Sitemeter numbers are public. I haven't
http://www.sitemeter.com/?a=stats&s=s23valleywag&r=33
Michael Arrington, at Techcrunch, leaves his Sitemeter numbers in the open. I'm not holding my breath for similar transparency from Scoble and Podtech.
@Scobleizer: Oh, a couple of other things, Scoble: first of all, I'm writing most of the site at the moment, including most of the posts about your alternating bloggerhea and blogging strikes. Not Nick Douglas. Confusing: all these Nicks. And the only disclosure I have to make is this: that I find Podtech broadcasts insufferably boring, and, yes, I am prejudiced against the company -- because I retain a naive belief that blog posts and broadcasts should convey either news, intelligence or humor, and sometimes, even, a couple of those qualities simultaneously.
Yea......what Nick said!!!....LOL
Adding that anyone who is in a constant "fight" to try and make themselves relevant to almost everything they come into contact with needs to be taken out back.
Scoble gets a few (free) drinks in him and all of a sudden he is the second coming. Relax as you'll soon end up like Justin TV because you have the same attitude.
Nick,
Well said, and I was here in the Valley for round 1. I'd say the sock-puppet factor is but a tiny fraction of what it was circa 99. How about for starters the fact that so many of the contenders today actually make money (or have a believable path to do so). We sorta forgot about that part of the equation a decade ago.
Still, some of today's darlings are way up there on the puppet-o-meter. Second Life anyone?
@ Randolf, are you kidding me? Very few sites are making money. Everybody's full of shit in this business so it's not like you can trust any of the numbers anyhow.
The only difference between then and now is that you can do things so cheaply it doesn't matter.
Nick, amen to that. Of course the big difference now is that we're making money. My first go-round was a complete sink for venture capital, and I doubt that the company ever got more than $500k in revenue.
What the cranks don't talk about is that today, unlike in 1996, if you get traffic you can make a lot of money with advertising. And the advertisers can get real leads and conversions. It's an actual economy now, not just a concept of an economy.
Randolf,
Nick and Nick are great, but you are still my #1 hater.
What made the Bubble a big deal? The hedge funds and the stock market. Those elements just aren't there now, and the only huge numbers are the prices Google, Viacom, Microsoft and Yahoo pay (and can afford to pay) for successful sites that need a revenue model within a larger network.
Even if Second Life is a waste of money (and while Denton keeps calling it rubbish, I believe it's at least an important step toward a real and useful virtual world), whose money is it wasting? A few VCs.
The employees are still learning in productive jobs. their careers would be far from over if Second Life died today; their skills could apply to the myriad MMORPGs and virtual communities being built.
@ billo, it's so precious how niave you are. Now go start the next wanna be YouTube. Please.
@Nick Douglas: Hunh, Nick, I think you've got your financial history wrong. Hedge funds weren't active last time, and they are during this boom.
Although unfamiliar with the Nick Douglas backs tory, if he is the gentlemen pictured in the photograph accompanying this article I feel its safe to assume he was old enough to have been part of the telegraph bubble.
pah. Be smart enough to cash out this time. That's the only thing we bubblers learned. We think it's great it can happen a second time! Gives us stragglers a second chance!
So now - get your VC money now while you can. It aint gonna last forever. I had a good laugh a few months ago when a well-respected VC commented that youtube "invented web video" on his blog. Remember...these are the people giving you their money. Just nod and take it and run!
Denton is right. Any hedge funds which existed 96-00 were invariably not involved in the tech bubble directly. Those that were around were doing mainly currency arbitrage or other global macro stuff. Today there is a place where VCs and HFs overlap.
I've never said Second Life doesn't represent something very important is happening. In fact, anyone who ever bothers to RTFA knows I've gone to great lengths to draw a distinction between my criticisms of SL and LL's business model and virtual worlds in general. I've also stated such in multiple interviews. All I'm saying in LL is f-ing it up.
That makes me a hater, whatever that means, in the fanbois' eyes. Tell you what samcal bud, I'll send you the next half dozen email threats I get for daring to pass on the Kool aid, k?
@Randolf: Randolf, I agree with you pretty much on everything you've said so far on SL. I just think its HILARIOUS how worked up people get on Valleywag over a bunch of silly business in the valley. I think in general you do a great job defending your opinions. It just really amuses me that you continually focus on ripping LL a new asshole (although it may be well deserved), and getting in arguments with a bunch of losers. Although, I guess that's the whole fun of reading and participating on this blog.
That is pretty jacked up that people send you threatening e-mails. If anything it just shows they are childish cowards.
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