I’m going to take a little break from blogging on my personal blog, but i’ll continue blogging over at the new Exclusive Concepts blog. Just look for the “Scott Speaks” section in the left column.
And of course - don’t forget to check out the Exclusive Concepts website!
Add comment August 9th, 2007
Interesting news. Everyone has been talking about when FaceBook would sell or IPO, but here they come and announce an acquisition! I had made the prediction on my blog many months ago that MySpace would eventually die at the hands of FaceBook… because FaceBook would do exactly the kinds of things that they are doing… and it looks like they are moving in the right direction. They are adding hundreds of thousands of new users per day, and their users actually USE FaceBook frequently.
MySpace will cite heavy numbers, but ask them:
1) How often their users USE the service
2) What percentage of their users are ACTIVE
Bottom line is this: Just as I predicted, MySpace is not innovating. They are moving slowly. They just don’t seem motivated.
Much as I am jealous of Mark, I respect the fact that he is not just some dumb kid who stumbled upon a great opportunity in FaceBook. Well, he did just stumble on it, but once he did, he realized what he had, and now he is building something great.
Add comment July 20th, 2007
It’s been a long time since i’ve updated my blog… way too long. The last few months have been incredible, both on a personal and professional level. So, here’s the quick update!
What have I been up to?
I taped my first radio interview on the Frugal Yankee Radio show - all about blogs and viral marketing.
I was on my first television panel - MSNBC’s Your Money with JJ Ramberg.
I attended my first Search Engine Strategies conference (the big conference in our industry), at Yahoo!’s invitation (as a guest speaker).
The Financial Times is compiling an article about me for their mergers and acquisitions report (no, i’m not selling!)
I’ve conducted several seminars at Bentley College - one on online community building, and the other on the topic of search engine optimization. I also judged an enterpreneurship contest for the Bentley Entrepreneurship Society.
I booked a trip to Israel in June that i’m VERY excited about.
We’ve almost doubled our staff at Exclusive Concepts thanks to some very loyal clients and the very dedicated team I am lucky enough to work with on a daily basis. There will be some very interesting developments coming soon.
I’ve also had the opportunity to catch up with some great friends, who remind me what I work so hard for.
Have a great day everyone.
Add comment April 24th, 2007
I talk a lot about online community building and the potential for online communities to inspire people to take action OFFLINE, in addition to taking action ONLINE. This past Monday I put my money where my mouth is and I attended my first ever Meetup through MeetUp.com:
Brian Hawkins, master networker and all-around good guy, invited me to take part in the event and present a case study on how we get our clients out of Google’s supplemental index. Mark from MarksGuide.com (a GREAT local blog about networking) posted a review of the event here.
In attendance were very interesting people with varying levels of SEO knowledge. I’ve been to a fair number of SEO events, and I actually learned something from this group. I’ll be back!
Add comment March 15th, 2007
There it is, my first national television experience - with JJ Ramberg on MSNBC’s Your Business! The show just aired (7:30 this fine Sunday morning).
It was a great experience. I usually don’t get nervous, but I have to admit that I was a bit anxious as I stepped into the “elevator” for the elevator pitch. That part was actually filmed first and I was able to get most of the butterflies out of my system. Amanda (from RealTimeShredding) who pitched Jeff and I (my fellow panelist) was incredibly sweet, and I think she did a great job. Elevator pitches like that aren’t easy and she knocked it out of the park. Jeff is a super-smart entrepreneur and VC; and it was a pleasure being on with him.
Are you a small business owner? I’d love to hear from you.
Add comment March 11th, 2007
Several weeks ago I was invited back to Bentley to speak to Professor Shuman’s class (he teaches a great course on entrepreneurialism). Professor Shuman asked me to share my story with the students, and I was asked lots of questions about how I managed to build a company from my dorm room, and what it’s like to be a young CEO now that i’ve graduated.
I’ve done this several times over the years and I really enjoy it. Students (especially Bentley students) are not afraid to be blunt, and often what ensues is a very open conversation that includes both the pros and cons of Entrepreneurship.
One of the students who attended just sent me a nice email:
I should have emailed you a week or so ago but it slipped my mind until I came across your business card today. I wanted to thank you for speaking to our entrepreneurial thinking class. Your visit was one of the more informative and interesting presentations we have had over the course of the semester and I just wanted to let you know that it was appreciated.
- Tara
That really made my day.
Add comment March 5th, 2007
For a while now, myself and many of my collegues have discussed the concept of the long-tail and the impact it will have on both the Internet and our lives in general.
In my essay, “Reflection on Joe Trippi’s ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised‘ ” I talked about the importance of a two-way dialogue between customer and company. In reality, the Internet fosters an integrated dialogue, rather than just a two-way dialogue, where may key stakeholders influence the discussion.
In a follow-up, “The Revolution is Happening Right Now,” I provided real-time examples of the long-tail at work, as a way to demonstrate its power.
Then, in MySpace is Dead, I took the example of a large Internet company, “MySpace,” and argued that niche sites that do something very similar would begin competing with it. It has started already.
So, what will this revolution look like?
It’s hard to predict human behavior, but here is what I think will happen.
On television we have several major television networks, and then a number of premium cable channels that cost extra.
On the Internet, while we’ve gone through cycles of expansion and contraction, it would appear now that the revolution will manifest itself in the following way:
Thousands… hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of little Web 2.0 companies will emerge, each one catering very specifically to the needs of a very small group of people through the Software as a Service model.
- Want to plan a party? Check out MyPunchBowl.com – a company whose time is dedicated solely to helping you plan the best party every.
- Like online gaming? Check out GuildeCafe – a social networking platform that brings gamers together in teams.
- Need a better tool to track your finances? Check out Geezo.
These Web 2.0 sites are popping up every day to address the needs of small niche groups in powerful and compelling ways. Some sites focus on entertainment, while others focus on personal or professional progress.
But… Web 2.0 companies that are being created target more than just consumers. Many people know of SalesForce.com (web-based CRM)… one of the first companies to deliver software as a service… but we have a client who is, in many ways, the SalesForce.com of the staffing industry. They’ve targeted a specific niche and created a product that appeals to that niche better than the goliath in the market. Have they been successful? Unbelievably so!
It’s true… in the Web 2.0 world, companies will have to either Go Big, Go Niche, or Go Home.
The interesting thing here is that while it costs a lot of money to build and distribute a television station, it costs little money to build a disruptively powerful website, at least in the eyes of the niche it targets. In fact, some venture capitalists are concerned because entrepreneurs need less and less money to build their companies (Web 2.0 companies), and the exits are likely to be small as well. YouTube aside… these Web 2.0 companies sell for good money quickly, but only few will fetch billion-dollar price tags.
In a lot of ways… These Web 2.0 companies are the enemies of the YouTube/MySpace/FaceBook world. The former gets very specific, while the latter (YouTube/MySpace/FaceBook) target everyone and their brother.
The Internet is ushering in a new era of entrepreneurism that will indeed change all of our lives… because that is the specific focus of all of these companies: To change our every-day lives, one niche at a time.
When Yahoo! sets out to do 500 things (build a great television portal, build a great movie portal, build a great financial portal, etc) they get spread thin.
When a lone entrepreneur, or small group of entrepreneurs set out to focus on building one great thing, they can direct all of their 
efforts exclusively on that one thing. Check out MyPunchBowl.com (listed above)… they have literally streamlined the party-planning process in a compelling way. We’ve all used Evite.com, but the workflow on PunchBowl rocks in comparison.
As you can see from the picture below… these entrepreneurs are hungry. This picture was taken at a WebInnovators event that I attended last Monday. Most of the people in this room at entrepreneus who have the sights set… not on changing the world, but on changing your world… if you fit their niche:)
Add comment February 2nd, 2007
Last Tuesday I attended one of the more interesting industry events of my career.
Thanks to a connection from David Teten at Nitron Advisors, Majestric Research (an investment research company) invited me to have dinner with with fund managers and investors from major global investment firms. I was joined by a handful of other industry experts, including Adam Epstein (President & COO of adMarketplace), Joe Myeress (eBay Powerseller placing in the top 200 eBay sellers in 2005), and John Aiken from Majestic.
This was no traditional event. Myself and my fellow experts sat together in a private room in Spire Restaurant, located in the trendy Nine Zero hotel in Boston. We drank wine, consumed delicious food, and were peppered by insightful questions from a select group of the world’s leading investors and analysts covering the Internet space.
- What will happen to Yahoo if they crack down on paid search arbiters?
- How do you explain the low adoption rate of Google Checkout thus far?
- Will the “long tail” become saturated?
- How does Yahoo combat the brain-drain Google has catalyzed by sucking up the best minds from all over the world?
- How will Google’s quality score affect CPC rates?
These are just some questions the analysts posed to the group. In sum, and to put it bluntly, I was shocked at the depth of knowledge these analysts possessed. They knew more about the field than many people who call themselves Internet marketing experts, and the breadth of industry data offered by Majestic would excite geeks everywhere.
This event was small, intimate, and wonderfully challenging. I’d love to do more of these.
Add comment December 17th, 2006
E-mail Flows
So many to respond to
Start with one
Add comment December 15th, 2006
A few years ago I won an award after being recommended to the the Global Student Entrepreneur Award contest held at St. Louis university. I just received an email from a subsequent winner announcing an interesting new website.
The link is www.MuseBox.com.
From Brian, the founder of MuseBox:
“When I set out 11 months ago, my goal was to build a tool that would allow creative people, especially students, the chance to compete in specific challenges via the web. Today, Musebox features creative challenges (across all media) in which motivated students can participate and get recognized for their talent and creativity prior to graduation.”
I browsed the site - and I think it’s pretty neat. Kudos Brian on coming up with a unique idea! I look forward to participating.
Add comment December 11th, 2006
I hate to break it to you Rupert… but MySpace is dead. Well, at least it is in the process of dieing. Rupert, I know you’ll tell me that MySpace is still one of the most popular websites on the Internet. You will tell me that it has tens of millions of loyal users (and growing). And you’ll also tell me that the smartest fund managers and financial gurus in the world praise you for stealing a multi-billion dollar Internet property for less than $600 million. But if you listen closely you’ll hear the fat lady warming up her vocal chords, and she’s about to give a great performance.
So, Rupert, let’s start with your first claim, that MySpace is one of the most popular websites on the Internet.
I can’t argue with this one. It surely is. I also know that it is responsible for a large chunk of Google searches. But do you remember the Altavista sensation of the late 90’s, during the Internet boom? Probably not… my guess is that you weren’t the Internet mogul then that they say you are today. Altavista was an immensely popular search engine that became popular VERY quickly thanks to the viral nature of the Internet. Despite the fact that, for a while, Altavista didn’t even own its own domain name (www.altavista.com), it proved that an online application that is much better than everything else out there will become popular quickly… simply because it is much better than the second-best option.
So what happened to the darling search engine that both the web geeks and the web masses adored so lovingly?
Google.
Google came online with this massive marketing machine and just promoted the heck out of themselves to steal market share from Altavista. Right? Well, not exactly. A couple of students launched Google, and without much marketing, Google came to be the most popular search engine on the Internet. Few people remember Altavista. Altavista wasn’t the first search engine, just like MySpace wasn’t the first social networking site… but Altavista ushered in a new era of search engines similar to how MySpace ushered in a new era of social networking… but because NEITHER of these two companies were/are truly great companies, the former became completely insignificant, and so too will the latter.
I can see you now, Rupert. Sitting on your executive leather chair, behind your big, masculine desk, which probably doesn’t even have a computer on it… talking to your MySpace chiefs.
You’ll say something like: Our user-base is growing like crazy, traffic is swelling… let’s just stay on course guys. Keep operating expenses low and focus on selling ad space. No creative missteps here… just stay the course and don’t do anything to rile the base.
Hannibal the cannibal couldn’t have said it better if he tried… despite the brilliance of Anthony Hopkins.
Rupert, MySpace hasn’t had any substantial interface changes in years. It’s impossible to navigate the darn thing… even for someone who has overseen the development of thousands of websites! It’s just not intuitive.
While FaceBook is slaving away, addressing detail after detail of user experience (advanced privacy features, a constantly tweaked UI, improving server-side performance, etc), MySpace just leaves well enough alone. Any social networking site by its nature will have an element of chaos… the goal of course being to maintain a concept of “organized chaos.” But the problem with MySpace is that it’s not organized at all… it’s just chaos. MySpace doesn’t help me to organize my world… it helps me to build a list of friends (many of whom i’ve never met, and never will meet)… while Facebook is actually trying to help me organize the world around me based on various spheres of influence.
FaceBook addresses the element of community… my community, which is complex and ever-changing. MySpace is all about linear relationships, with no profound contemplation of community.
When I log in to MySpace, I see 500 spam messages from computer hackers and guerilla marketers trying to get me to add them as a friend in my profile. Of course, these computer hackers and guerilla marketers have profiles with pretty sounding feminine names and pictures of attractive women. They think that because I am attracted to the fairer sex, I’ll add them into my profile as a friend, thus giving them access to spam all of my other friends. In sum… a cheap experience. In FaceBook there is none of that. FaceBook is a controlled, well-organized community. MySpace is just chaos.
FaceBook started out as “College students only,” but now it is growing. Alumns can join, and so can companies (and their employees). My guess is they won’t stop there. MySpace started as “all things to all people,” and despite the perception that it’s for high schools, a large percentage of its users are over 35 years-old.
What else does MySpace have to worry about? The long-tail.
What’s the long-tail? Arguably the most important concept in Internet communities. The basic premise is this… be a big fish in a small pond, rather than a small fish in a big pond. If you are a retailer, for example, rather than opening up one big sporting good website… you open up a website for fishermen, and you craft a unique shopping experience for this very specific audience. Really focus in on their particular needs. The brilliance of FaceBook is that, even though it is big, it does go after the long-tail based on the way it designs its networks. It allows me to join a “Boston” network for example, or my company network, or a “group” of people who believe in community activism (MySpace has groups… but it just isn’t the same). And again, I can do all this without the fear of spammers and manipulators.
But FaceBook’s ability to employ the long-tail concept is not MySpace’s only threat. Whenever a massive phenomenon like MySpace hits the Internet, it is an absolute guarantee that copy-cats will follow, but Internet copy-cats are smart because they get the concept of the long-tail. They know they cannot beat MySpace at its own game, and so divide-and-conquer kicks in. One student entrepreneur starts a social networking site for high school students in his home town. A web company starts a social networking website for baseball players. Another company starts a social networking aimed at yuppies. Yet another starts a social networking website for retirees. And slowly but surely, all of these individual, small social networking websites offer a better experience to its users than those users could get at a generalist website like MySpace.
As for those who want to be involved in a BIG social network that everyone is a part of… we’ll have those too. Applications that work better and faster than MySpace (like FaceBook), and perhaps, applications the aggregate data from many different small social networking websites to create one big community from many very small communities will come about.
MySpace lacks direction. And it’s not that MySpace can’t smarten up and change. By all objective accounts they are on top of their game. But if you really follow the social networking sector, and if you’ve really followed MySpace over the past few years, you’ll see very few signs that MySpace, under the leadership of Rupert, is actually a GREAT company. I’m not saying it is a bad company… i’m just not saying it is a GREAT company. You don’t have to be a GREAT company in a mature market to succeed, but you do have to be a GREAT company in an ever-changing market to succeed, and I just don’t see that greatness in MySpace. In fact, I see nothing but slow servers, an antiquated user-interface, and an abstruse, jumbled user-experience. MySpace no doubt has great programmers, server people, and staff… the question is, do they have good leadership?
So while MySpace boasts huge user acquisition, I encourage everyone to ask the question:
Do these NEW users stay and play? Or, do they sign-up, browse, and decide MySpace isn’t for them?
MySpace knows the answer to these questions. They know the percentage of their huge user base that is active, versus passive… I wonder if they will share that with us anytime soon.
4 comments December 1st, 2006
If you had:
- Unlimited time
- Unlimited money
- Unlimited abilities
How would you change the world?
Add comment November 24th, 2006
A year or so ago I received a random call from a high school teacher asking me to come speak at her school. I said I would be happy to, and I asked her how she heard about me. It turns out she teaches a class on entrepreneurship, and some how my story had made it in the textbook without my knowledge.
The funny thing is that it just happened again. I was browsing Amazon, and I decided to do a search on my last name. I came across a book called Automatic Wealth for Grads… and Anyone Else Just Starting Out by Michael Masterson.
I logged in, took advantage of Amazon’s “search inside” feature, and sure enough I found a passage that tells my story of entrepreneurship. The story was 3 years old, but it was pretty accurate.
What’s strange is that people are using my story without calling me for it directly. It’s kind of fun… but i’m always happy to get a phone call about something fun like this:)
2 comments November 7th, 2006
Once, someone asked me what my favorite day of the year is. I thought hard about my answer. New Years is great, because with the passing of a single day you start a brand new year with a blank slate. Growing up on the Jersey shore, the 4th of July has always been up there as well.
For me, however, my favorite day of the year is Election Day. And yes, I know that sounds very geeky, although I’ve always thought of myself as kind of a civics geek.
I like Election Day so much because it is really a day of substance. It’s a day when the people of America have an opportunity to take control of their democracy and cast a verdict that will influence the direction we move in for the next few years. So many people have dedicated their lives to causes that allow us to vote, and many more have died in battle to preserve the rights that allow us to shape a more perfect democracy. To me, voting is not about patriotism though… rather, it is about fulfilling a responsibility to a country that offers its citizens limitless opportunity, and to the people who made that so.
I know where i’ll be the night of November 7 - i’ll be watching the results stream in, eager to learn the direction the people of America have chosen for us. Don’t forget to vote.
Add comment November 7th, 2006
I was at a party this weekend and towards the end I started thinking about something that has always bothered me… It takes way too long to say goodbye!
When I am ready to leave a party, or a social gathering, or even a business meeting – the only thing that I can think about is leaving. Either I’m tired, or I’m bored, or I have somewhere to go to, and I can’t think about anything but leaving.
My desire to leave is generally not a commentary on the party itself. I had a good time this weekend with people that I like a lot – but the fact stands that when I’m ready to go, I’m ready to go.
Well, this time, when I was ready to go, I turned to one of my friends and I predicted that it would take our group 28 minutes to leave after initiating the “goodbye” process. Fortunately, my estimation was a little bit off. The goodbye process only took 24 minutes.
I think the longest goodbye process I’ve experienced was at my high school reunion. It easily took 2 hours to say goodbye. I’d make it to the door and then one of the people I was with would get pulled into conversation. Then she would make it to the door and I would get pulled into a conversation. After an hour, when I thought I was free and clear, the husband of one of my teachers pulled me aside… he said, in a skeptical tone, I hear you have your own Internet business. Of course, I answered, “yes.” He then asked me to explain the world of Internet marketing to him, after which a one-hour Q&A session followed. Normally I love to be asked about what I do… but not once the goodbye process starts.
The next time you’re at a party time how long your goodbye process lasts.
Add comment November 6th, 2006
I returned from a one-week cruise today. It was a long overdue family vacation. We visited Cozumel, Costa Maya, Belize, and the Bahamas. We were joined by family friends, which made for a big, fun-loving group! Pictures are coming soon, too.
Trip highlights?
- Watching my mother go parasailing in Cozumel (I’m still shocked she got up there)
- Scuba diving in Belize (I highly recommend it)
- Morning Margaritas in the rain in Costa Maya (what a day)
What was also cool about this trip is the sheer fact that I was able to be completely disconnected for a full week. 2 years ago I could barely take a day off without compromising my business. Now, thanks to a great staff and managers, I was able to leave for a full week with the full confidence that everything would go on without me, and that our clients would receive top-notch service as always. It’s just an amazing feeling knowing that I have such an incredible and dynamic team around me.
As for the title of this post, “123 Emails,” that refers to the one negative thing about going away on vacation: coming back. Over the week I received about 1,000 emails, and I responded to 123 of them today. That’s a personal record for me. Fortunately a significant percentage of the 1,000 emails were spam - which means I’m almost caught up!
Add comment October 30th, 2006
If the relative frequency of Google searches related to a major news story is an indicator of overall public interest, American people were far more interested in learning about the Rove leak scandal in July of 2005 than the Foley scandal.
The graph below from Google Trends shows the number of times “rove” has been searched for relative to the number of times “foley” has been searched for on Google.
Even if you’re just a casual online news/newspaper reader or television news watcher, you certainly could not have escaped news of these scandals. What’s interesting is that people flocked to Google more in reaction to the Rove scandal than in reaction to the Foley scandal, despite the substancial coverage the Foley scandal is receiving, the proximity to the November election, and the potential that the Foley scandal will lead to the Speaker of the House resigning.
Add comment October 7th, 2006
This morning I had the pleasure of speaking at The Presidents’ Forum of Boston, organized by The Entrepreneurship Institute (TEI). The event was attended by over 100 CEOs and Presidents of small to mid-market companies ranging in size from $3 million to $100 million.
There were some dynamic speakers today with very interesting stories to tell. Colin Angle from the iRobot Corporation spoke, as did Randy Papdellis from Ocean Spray Cranberries.
I was fortunate enough to speak on a panel with Sandy Lish of The Castle Group, and Don Kaplan of Kaplan Marketing. The subject: How to use marketing to bring your business to the next level.
An interesting discussion is guaranteed when you bring in the principal of a successful PR firm like The Castle Group, an experienced marketing strategist like Don Kaplan, and an Internet marketer like myself. That goes double when you are speaking to a group of sharp CEOs.
We didn’t agree on everything, but we all seemed to agree that businesses are best served when they take the time to develop a real marketing strategy, such that they approach marketing (PR, direct response marketing, Internet marketing, viral marketing) from a strategic mindset, rather than a tactical one.
I particularly enjoyed my fellow panelists because, although they’ve become leaders in the kind of marketing that pre-dates the Internet, they’ve still spent the time to understand and (where appropriate) embrace the Internet. Unfortunately, a lot of marketers don’t even know what the word “blog” means.
Add comment October 4th, 2006
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