The Internet is 5,000 Days Old…What Have You Done for Me Lately?

Posted by Howard
on September 8th, 2008

The big Meme of the moment is that we the internet is 10 years old . I have been working on this post for a week, but tonight I am finally pulling it together. The reason…I have a catalyst:

The US is mulling a suit against Google and their growing power in advertising – OY!

First of all…have the fucknuts checked out YouTube’s abysmal advertising numbers? Or Google’s stock price since the YouTube acquisition? (pretty flat)

Have the asshats heard of API’s?

Has McCain ever sent an email using gmail?

Has Bush ever searched ‘Texas Brothel’ ????? because if he did there would be no lawsuit, just tax incentives….you get my point.

We seem close to greatness, but instead, we are on the verge of huge setbacks. It’s not just the yutz’s in charge of our government, though that is enough to slow us all down. How about Comcast trying to throttle down our usage. That’s creative! Even Apple with it’s iPhone crappola and AT&T stoneage partnership from hell.

Despite the yutz’s and putz’s trying to slow the train down, the internet will continue to seek and destroy the old guard:

1. Newspapers – Adios

2. StockBrokers – Please clean and WAX my car after you place that penny a share trade biiitch!

3. Travel Agents – Gone

4. Real Estate Agents – Tipping to Gone

5. Airlines – I know I know, unstoppable BUT if they had an internet ready casino airline, all the world’s troubles would end.

As per the whole Microsoft vs. Google comparisons….please. Microsoft clamped down on innovation for years if it did not fit in with it’s own visions. If you ever had to deal with getting a ‘FLYING Windows’ sticker in the 1990′s for your software product, you know what a real monopoly is. Its night and day. Google’s playing field has been and will be much tougher than Microsoft’s ever was. Google has proved a lot, but the internet changes things at light speed. Google won’t have the same time frame to deal with their ‘MONOPOLY’. Not the same amount of time that Equifax (selling your name) or Microsoft have had.

The internet continues to add exponential value to my life. I talk often about ‘Social Leverage’ so I won’t rehash, but if you are not part of this trend, Obama nor McCain can’t save your sorry asses. It’s a Tsunmai aimed at your cush VP job.

Here are all the reasons I am optimistic:

1. Brad Feld talks about ‘Cycles’ . I know one thing and that is that the information cycle is everlasting. I can live within the inevitable down cycles in this internet era knowing that an up cycle is around the corner.

2. Social Leverage. It’s my favorite term, but it has many subtleties. Fred discusses the feedization of the Web . Clive Thompson at The NY Times discusses Digital Intimacy in an awesome piece. Fancy terms aside, it has never been cheaper to build your brand and leverage your talents. It all comes down to dollars and sense and the social leverage trend is DAY ONE!

3. Marc Andreesen could have retired, but he has not. So you should at least check in with Marc Andreesen, founder of porn social site NING. Om Malik does that for us . Marc is pretty hopped up:

“Super interactive browser that sits atop a super-fast connection…now interesting things will happen over the next 5-10 years,” he said. While he talked at length about Facebook, Twitter, Qik and Ning, it was his comments about the Chrome browser that were quite interesting.

Why? Because back in the day he was one of the first few people to talk about the browser as an operating environment. I had bought into the concept then, and I buy into it now. With always-on connections feeding networked devices and mobile phones, the browser-as-an-operating-environment is close to becoming a reality.

This community is all about being optimistic, not stupid and wreckless for headlines. I could make super bold statements like this asshat Jason CalacANUS:

“Take whatever money you have left that you haven’t paid Harvard for your tuition and leave school tomorrow and start an Internet company.” (the year – 2000…nice call Jason). He and Cramer should actually have a child together.

I am sure a not hyped up on Jason, Jason would might have meant that there has never been an easier time to actually start a business. That does not mean yours will be successful and you should drop everything you are doing and sink every penny into it. NO. There has never been a better time to follow your passion and instinct, whether spare or part time and using the internet to leverage it.

I hope the government does not screw this up for all of us. They are the only ones that can.

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