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Friday round up (a continuation of my blog hybrid)
Here’s a collection of my thoughts from this week.Â
The Generations Network
Word on the street is that The Generations Network or TGN (formerly Myfamily.com) is in trouble. They recently laid off 60 employees and canned Daren Thayne, their now former CTO. Turnover in the last year, especially among middle and senior managers has been high. The lay off is a strategy by the board and senior management to up the EBIDA by reducing $10M in costs in an effort to make the business look more attractive to potential buyers. Yeah, that’s going to be about as effective as the TGN’s billboards on I-15.
TGN has had several offers to buy the Company out but the board has rejected all claiming the offers are too low. What does the board think TGN is worth? How about $500,000,000 (cough, cough) The Company’s sales, which are about $150M, have been stagnant for the last four years. Â
I never thought I’d be saying this but TGN should be taking WorldVitalRecords very seriously. Paul Allen has some serious traction (he just closed a round of financing) and he’s exploiting TGN’s weaknesses left and right. If Paul can get the right management team in place and keep executing than I believe some TGN employees may be calling Paul for a job. It would be fun to watch the original founder of MyFamily.com take down MyFamily.com with WVR. Although Paul and I have had our differences I still really like and respect him. I’d get a real kick out of watching Paul take down TGN.
Hey, Paul. Looking for a new CTO? I hear Daren Thayne is on the market.Â
The Doba thing is all my fault
Doba’s been at the forefront of getting Guy Kawasaki here to Utah in November. Apparently, when people registered for the event they were somehow put into Doba’s system as a lead. That meant they got a call from a Doba sales rep. Some people are calling it “spam”. I call it an honest mistake. Occasionally the Utah Blogosphere (all 11 of us) tries to make news out of non-issues. Â
If you want to blame someone for all this then blame me. I’m the one who talked Jeremy into charging you the lousy $10 bucks for the event so that people will finally start paying for some value around here. Its all my fault!!!
This just in…Doba is refunding the $10 to all seven (yes, seven) people who registered and got a call from Doba.
The Internet is boring
Mark Cuban said recently that the Internet is boring. I agree. I am so bored by Web 2.0 that my eyes water after staring at TechCrunch for more than 10 seconds. All Jason Calacanis does is pimp Mahalo and fight with everyone to get attention. I think I’ve even developed a mild case of Scobleitis (also known as Scoble Fatigue Syndrome or SFS).
I’m also sorry to say that the Utah blogosphere has really gone down hill lately. With a few exceptions, reading ConnectBlogs is like reading the Encyclopedia Britannica. And what is so great about facebook? I can see the marketing applications but I often find myself scratching my head over this thing. Maybe I just don’t “get it”. Let’s not even get started on Twitter. I don’t want to get any death threats.
Ever since Owen Thomas took over Valleywag the site has gone strait to Hades. What was once the voice of reason in the Valley has now turned into a rag about burning man, fake Steve Jobs and the Google jet. In other words, a bunch of shiz no one cares about. I’m also sick of all the Apple love on Valleywag. This is supposed to be a gossip site not an Apple fanboy site. Are you listening, Nick Denton?
All the Web is good for anymore is watching Laird Hamilton surf videos on YouTube (this is one of my favorites) and reading Fark.
The haters and deniers
I knew I’d had enough of the Internet when I started coming across terms like “haters” and “deniers” on various blogs. If you have legitimate complaints about Apple then the Apple fanboys call you a “hater”. If you have legitimate questions about global warming then the fanatics call you a “denier”. Frankly, I’m sick of it.
The great thing about blogging is that it gives people a voice. The bad thing about blogging is that it gives people a voice.Â
So what’s the Internet good for?
Lead generation and direct response. More on that later.Â
(Disclosure: do you seriously care if there may be something here to disclose? I doubt it.)
Don’t get me started on the amount of money companies waste on billboard advertising . . . reference to your stab at TGN.
It’s probably one of the first ideas I hear come out of a business owner’s mouth every time I sit down to discuss marketing/PR, and it’s rarely a good solution for what they want to accomplish, which should be to sell more stuff.
Left by Russell on 09/14/2007Thanks for taking the blame for it.
Just to clarify, we only called 7 people before we caught our mistake. We’ve had tons more register for what looks like will be a sold out event. I like this new blog hybrid though, it’s all Chris’s fault. Probably why the Internet is boring too. Let’s start a new campaign: blame Chris!
Left by Jeremy on 09/14/2007@Jer:
I like that idea - its all my fault. I ought to register the domain blamechris.com and let people come to the site and chew me out for crap I know nothing about. That would be cool!
PS the Guy event is going to be great. I’m looking forward to it…
Left by Chris Knudsen on 09/14/2007Agreed on ConnectBlogs. I try to use it to keep in touch with the Utah startup scene and it sucks. Someone needs to create a new site (startingutah.com?) that isn’t an aggregator, but has invited, edited posts.
Left by nick macey on 09/17/2007