Rolling in hot, bringing snake and nape

Don't these people ever quit

Jerry Michalski broke it down for me years ago. I was hosting a brunch for him at my loft in New York after he had moved out West. Over some H&H bagels we talked about happiness, something he always seemed to have in abundance. He told me that we humans were simple creatures at the end of the day: we just wanted to make a living doing something we loved.

Wow. That stuck with me.

WIN's outward facing business model?the one the public experiences-is as a long tail publisher. We've got a bunch blogs, a bunch of bloggers, and a bunch of advertisers. We surf Chris' long tail to profitability. Case closed, you can file us away in your dotcom history books as the latest evolution of the AOL Greenhouse, GeoCities, and About.com breed.

However, the truth is that what we are creating has nothing to do with publishing. What we're creating is a lifestyle for passionate people that *results* in our outward facing business model.

These days we don't spend time saying asking ourselves how can we make better blogs, we spend our time saying how can we support our bloggers better?

Our bloggers work for a couple of hours a day and magically a check arrives every month (100+ checks last month). Every couple of months the check gets a little bigger and the blogger's love and knowledge of their topic grows deeper. The blogging becomes easier and more rewarding the more bloggers blog. The community gets more involved and their jobs get even easier and more rewarding.

We give them raises when they don't expect it. We send them to trade shows they always wanted to attend, but never had a chance too. We have a total blast when we go to these trade shows-it's a party!

The dream is to have hundreds of people working for a couple of hours a day about a subject they love without having to answer to a boss. Without being filtered. If someone loses their passion for a subject they cn simple glide over to another subject in the network and become inspired all over again. If they have two or three passions in their life they blog about all of them as much-or as little-as they want.

No filters, no politics, no commute, and no office.

And when you go to college, it will be easy to get laid.

Let me tell you a story about the writer of this horseshit, Jason Calacanis.

First, so there is no misunderstanding, I have always thought he was full of shit. He's always had money to fuck around with. He had a magazine, tried to do some shit with VC's and is now trying to set up some kind of blog empire.

Ok, so Jen, the Netslaves guys and I are at a conference of online writers. With us is John Lee. John is an old school hacker and the smartest guy I know. He's also a big fucking guy. He really hates Calacanis because of some shit. So, on stage, John says he basically wants to smack the shit out of him. Calacanis blanched. Because John is old school Brooklyn as well, and he's not into idle threats.

No violence occured, but John just ripped into him.

It was fun to watch.

Now it's my turn.

In yesterday's Salon, there was a long article on snake oil salesman Kevin Trudeau. Calacanis is an online snakeoil salesman.

Everything he wrote is bullshit.

Easier? Maybe with his canned blogs, but in my world, this gets harder every day. Yesterday was libel law day. Like the SEALS say, the only easy day was yesterday

He thinks this is some kind of utopia? Bullshit. If his bloggers are working a few hours a day, their blogs aren't very good. He compares it to those lame ass projects like About.com when it isn't anything like that.

This guy has been on the make for years and this doesn't surprise me.

But his blogs are dull and uniform and the writing didn't stop me in my tracks.

But let me explain something: any asshole calling himself chief happiness officer is going to fuck someone over at some time. Writing is hard work. It isn't easy and it isn't always fun. He likes the hype of being a blog impresario but he isn't so worried about the quality of his content. That's the hard part.

It isn't all parties and fun, trust me on that, and spouting that shit, and how easy it all is, pissed me off, because it's a crock of shit.

He was a dotcom failure and with his pollyanna attitude, blog failure is next.

God, I can't stand this guy.

posted by Steve @ 2:15:00 AM