Tag: web 2.0

How to build a community

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

We all want to build a web and or brand community. But we forget the most important fact. We need individuals first.

Only we please one individual can we please two. Only when we please two, can we please three….

There will never be a community unless we love our orginal individuals unconditionally. It’s the love we give someone that makes what we do worth talking about. There is never a community unless love is shared at the most personal level. One to one. It’s something we should remember in startup land.

twitter-follow-me

The internet lives in Dog years

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

The internet is a bit like dogs. Life moves a bit more quickly. Which is why I still laugh whenever I hear that the latest hit website is going to be the dominate force forever in that that category. As Facebook is currently being touted to be, then I love to remind the pundit just a little bit about the history of the internet.

Yahoo was search. it was game set and match, then came Google.

Myspace was social networking – it had won, apparently…

Blackbery had stitched up the hand held internet enabled smart phone market…

Geocites was the way we’d all have our own websites… then came blogging

All of which remind us how things can change ever so quickly on the intenert. This wont change, because the barriers to entry are so low. $5 an hour in India for a coder, $9.99 for a domain, $Free internet access and a wifi enabled laptop for a few hundred dollars and you’re an internet entrepreneur. Unlike TV and tradtional media outlets, anyone can play. Creativity wins, not financial resources.

The insight is that the forums people hang out in will always change, like disco’s and pubs (the web is social) – it’s also kinda Punk. Our job isn’t to predict which is the next big thing, but to learn how to use them quickly so that we can participate in a timely manner.

twitter-follow-me

Economic irrationalist

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Lately I’ve been making a few decisions which are economically irrational. Making decisions which are, on the face of it, financially inept.

For example, I starting to feel a sense of loyalty to my chief technology officer for rentoid.com

He’s not the cheapest and he’s not the best. Probably somewhere in the middle for both. I could probably get someone cheaper with similar skills, or better for the same price. But I don’t. In fact I tell him that I’m loyal to him. A large part of why I want  to succeed so that he can succeed also, to share it with him. Even though he has not risked the capital, or the time that I have on the project.

Why would I act this way. Well I like working with him. He’s a nice guy, and sometimes that’s enough.

I guess you could call me an Economic Irrrationalist. And it just feels right.

Web everywhere

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Recently I was chatting with a Director at a global advertising agency about changes in the media landscape. The impact that the internet was having. She mentioned that the internet only affected a certain portion of the population – not all target audiences. The younger generation, the web savvy, the technophiles…

I retorted with the following:

Once upon the web was a thing you had to visit. First it was in military installations, then Universities. Eventually it was present in only very large corporates on selected computers. Later, on every desk in every company. Afterwhich  every computer in every home had it. And now it’s on our latops, in our cafes, in our pockets, it’s the GPS that directs our cars and powers the touch screen shopping mall directory. Next year all TV’s sold will be web enabled – 5 billion channels. It’s on every digital display in our lives.

It came to us, it removed the original demographic bias. The web is everywhere and permeates our entire existence. It has changed advertising forever.

The web is no longer and thing or a place. It is omnipresent.

Launch choices

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Seems there are two choices in launching a startup or brand:

1. Buy an audience. [quick but expensive]

2. Earn a following. [slow and cheap]

The problem with the first option is that we don’t get many chances to refine our stuff, and getting it wrong can end it all. The benefit with the second option is that it allows and encourages experimentation. And if we experiment enough, we might just be able dome some of the first option too.

Convention busting – retail

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Long held wisdom in the retail industry is that items must be displayed on shelves by category. Idea being that we know what thing we are looking when we shop. But what if we’re just browsing? What if we don’t want anything in particular? Bring on Smiggle – stationary retailer who display their range by color.

Eyeball worthy…. I better go check out what they have in purple.

They aren’t the only ones moving towards it, as  on line retailer etsy also display their range on line by color, with an amazing interface – check it out. It just works.

What other conventions need to be busted in your startup category?