When was the last time you looked at a new Web 2.0 startup and said to yourself, "I must be getting old, because I don't get this one at all!"
This morning? Yeah. Me too!
That's why I like SuckyStartups.com. It's a blog that aims to prove that sometimes the Web 2.0 ideas flying around the Internet that I "just don't get" are just really bad, poorly conceived ideas. Sometimes it's true that I can't understand a concept because I'm not 18 years old and don't live in that world. But a lot of the time it has nothing to do with my age! It's not that I just don't "get it" because I'm not part of Gen Y and don't have gangster rap blaring behind my MySpace profile! Sometimes I don't get them because they really don't make any sense!
Two examples from SuckyStartups.com:
- MadKast.com: The headline from the August 17th post about this startup says it all... "MadKast helps you send links because emailing them is just too darn hard..." Good point. I get social bookmarking, but why do I need a site to help me send a link? (Yes, I did watch their video. I still don't get it.)
- Twitter.com: SuckyStartups.com's post, Why Twitter Sucks, is more of a rant, but it gets at some of what I have felt all along. I wrote about Twitter on March 31, 2007. I said at that time, "Can I guarantee you'll get it? No. I'm not sure I do." Here I am almost 6 months later and I still don't get it. I know this throws me out of favor with all the cool geek kids, but it's true. In fact, I don't get it to the point that I'm not going to use it even more than I'm not using it now. I'm going to follow the advice I gave to NP Dodge Real Estate Agents and quit doing one thing that isn't bringing a return on my investment (time) and do something else instead.
I have not agreed with everything this writer has said about the sucky startups he writes about, but the logic he uses to address each startup helps me ask better questions myself. For that he gets a plug.
I don't really care if you start reading SuckyStartups.com. That's not the point of this post. In the end, this post is meant to encourage you to do two things:
- Trust your gut. Sometimes when something doesn't make sense... it just doesn't make sense.
- ALWAYS ask yourself the critical questions: How will this help me and my business? How much of my time will it occupy? What will be my ROI?
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