Alec Saunders SquawkBox

Jeff Pulver posted an idea yesterday that bears some examination.  Jeff would like bloggers to tag blatant self-promotions as advertising.  I wrote a comment to him saying that I didn’t think it would be easy for me to do that.  Some of what I write is opinion, some fact, but not much is pure advertising.  Mad VoIPer also wrote a similar although much longer piece on his blog titled Blogvertising&… stuff.  I am not sure that tagging is the right way to handle this issue either, since tagging (to me) is really about free form indexing, and I’m not sure I’d want to index advertising. 

However, I think that Jeff’s idea about truth in blogging is a valid one.  So, without further ado, here’s why I blog.

1. The number one reason is to engage in a dialog about ideas that I think are interesting.  I am not a one-sided individual.  Who among us is?  Blogging is my outlet, my medium for self expression, my soapbox.  I am part of the mutual debating society, and mutual navel gazers club, called the blogosphere.  150 years ago, I would have been a pamphleteer.  Today, I am a blogger.  Read my series on why I believe that gay people should be allow to marry, and you will understand what makes me tick.  I love the debate, and I am passionate about the exchange and critique of ideas, and the public crucible in which they can be reduced to their essence, examined and judged upon their merit.
2. I have opinions.  You need to know what they are!  Or at least, I like to delude myself that that’s the case.  That’s why I write about wine, and the places I visit.  I am passionate about technology, and the business of technology. What makes a great company?  Why do some companies fail?  What’s next for the current darling in the industry? So I write about technology and business too. 
3. I want to shape the industry that I work in. I learned at Microsoft that stating an opinion, putting a stake in the ground, and rallying others to that opinion, could help to shape outcomes. Plainly and simply, at various points we will reach forks in the road, have decisions to take, and require good people to step forward and debate those decisions.  I have a view on what those are, which is why I author pieces like the Voice 2.0 Manifesto. 
4. And finally, I still get thrilled by discovering something new that others might not have seen.  When I see something new, or cool, I just want to share. 

Sometimes I’m a little self promotional.  If that offends, I apologize.  But it ain’t gonna stop me;  as my friend and fellow blogger Randy Morin says, "I blog, therefore I am". 

Now you know.  And I hope you continue to read, enjoy, criticize, and debate what I have to say.   An ego the size of mine can use a little deflating occasionally. 

Evan Williams Ten Rules for Startups came to me yesterday.  Wisdom! 

1. Be Narrow
2. Be Different
3. Be Casual
4. Be Picky
5. Be User-Centric
6. Be Self-Centered
7. Be Greedy
8. Be Tiny
9. Be Agile
10. Be Balanced
11. (bonus!): Be Wary

By Evan’s scale, iotum is doing pretty well.  We’re not about casual content creation, so we fail on number 3.  We score well on all the others.  I’d add one more too:

12. Be Parsimonious (ok, cheap!).  Cash is king.  We buy office equipment and furniture from bankruptcy sales. We buy from EBay for most other stuff.  We ran our company with a single Vonage line for 18 months.  We drive to meetings (when possible) rather than fly.  Better yet, we use Live Meeting, rather than have the meeting. We make extensive use of hotwire.com to book hotels.  We became travel agents ourselves in order to get the agent discount when booking travel. There are a million ways to save money, and every one helps. 

We took a seed investment in June 2004, and stretched it to June 2005 when the original budget had it running out in February 2005.  That’s how cheap we are.

My traffic went through the roof yesterday, and I couldn’t figure out why.  All I could see was the Google Adsense page impressions number climbing into the stratosphere.  The reason turned out to be Reddit.  Reddit is another social bookmarking site, not based on tags, but votes.  Something like CommonTimes.  The post in question, Hugh Gallagher’s funny college admissions essay, generated as many hits in one day as two good days for me previously. 

Here is an interesting thought experiment.  Google is positioning itself as the platform for the web, which is the reason that Microsoft has launched their Microsoft Live initiative.  How real is the threat to Microsoft from Google?  I ran the numbers from publicly available financial information, and extrapolated them forward. 

At current growth rates, in 2005 Google’s business is roughly three times as large as MSN.  In 2006, Google’s revenues are about the same as Office or Windows.  And in 2007, Google’s revenues are about the same as Office and Windows combined.

Colored cells are estimates.

Rather illuminating, wouldn’t you say?  And now you know the reason that Ray Ozzie made such a point of saying that advertising supported software was part of the strategy at the Microsoft Live launch.

I’ve been nominated in the category of Best Business Blog for the Canadian Blog Awards.  Nominations are over, and voting is now underway.  Jump to the ballot page and vote!  Little known fact… if you wish, you may vote once every day.  So, vote early, and vote often :)