Is Silicon Valley too smart?
I arrived at Software 2006 in time to catch some sessions on Wednesday. First, I met with Joe Kraus, co-founder of Excite and now co-founder of JotSpot, the wiki-roll-your-own software company.
Just before I met with Joe I ran into Ross Mayfield, ceo of SocialText--also a wiki-roll-your-own-software company. Both are two of my favorite contacts and very much alike, a kind of Twiddle-dum and Twiddle-dee except skinnier--like their software (Please see "Skinny apps.")
Both Joe and Ross share the same neighborhood, physically as well as in the market. And I enjoy talking with them because they seem to come to similar conclusions as I do, but they get there in different ways, with different thinking.
I walk into the special speaker VIP room with Joe Kraus, and the room is large and has trendy sofas around its edges and in the middle of the room there is a portable fountain (not chocolate).
We sit and chat and ask each other "What do you think of..." It is great hearing other people's take on things and it's also great if you get to the same place--but with different routes.
We talked about Silicon Valley. Joe says, "Sometimes I think that Silicon Valley is just too smart for its own good."
Do you mean the way everyone is running around trying to commoditize their competitor's markets I ask?
"It's the way there is so much faith in technology but if you look at the current success stories such as MySpace or FaceBook they are badly designed, the technology is old, yet they are successful," Joe says. "It's about how you use the technology."
I say you are so right, we have enough technology, the Geeks- bless their souls--have done a fantastic job. We now have almost free technology--now it is all about how you use it, it is all about publishing, it is all about media. I see the world through a media lens or rather I have a media hammer, I tell Joe.
A little while ago, Dave Winer, who I consider one of the original thinkers on the internet, asked on his blog, is media the new technology? I was so thrilled that someone else had spotted this. And yes, media is the new technology. You might not quite understand it yet, but you will in time . . . and it will become very obvious.
Anyway, lots to tell you about my chat with Joe, but at a later time, it's getting late now :-)
