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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.

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.

If you had:

- Unlimited time
- Unlimited money
- Unlimited abilities

How would you change the world?

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.

Link

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:)

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.