Cocktails for Two

Dear over-excited technology worker feeling nostalgia for the tech bubble they didn’t participate in,

The “now” of the internet is not about links, it’s about content—and it has been for quite some time. I know you think of yourself as a “curator,” you sift through the masses of content with a keen eye, deciding what is and isn’t worth while. You are ahead of the curve, an early adopter, a motherfucking trend setter. Except, you are not. Creating a monetizable aggregate of content streams seems genius, right? I’m pretty sure Nick Denton thought so too when he started Gawker, but take into consideration this gem from March of 2008, “what’s missing is substance. Everybody is looking for something to link to.”

But, I get it. Your model is different. You are not presumptuous enough to think your taste is the best. Leave that to hipsters and starving artist elitists. You are a business man, you read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, have a following on StockTwits, and can totally kinda sorta explain CAPM, maybe. What you are going to do is leverage all those taste-makers and experts out there, you know, the crowd. All the people doing this research because it’s their passion. They’ll supply you the content for free, because they want to—who wouldn’t? right? And you will aggregate it and sell ad space. Well, you won’t aggregate it, your intern will after the experts submit it to your site, categorized and tagged. With all this user generated content creating passive-income for you, you won’t have to do much. The best part, is the content is free. Freedom of information, that’s right. Content should all be free, because information should be free, because you don’t actually know the difference between them. But, whatever, you’ll just sell the ad space and continue thinking about your next big idea.

Because, after all, that’s what you do. You think, you are a visionary, you come up with ideas. You are an intellectual. Thinking is your piece of the division of labor. You think, because the rest of us can’t. And, really, thank you for that. You really found what makes me tick. Regurgitated information, statistics without source citations, charts by people who don’t understand log scales, and lots and lots of pictures of kittens and videos of babies. Who needs TV, magazines or newspapers when we have you?!?!