Om Malik

[Commentary] Silicon Valley’s biggest failing is not poor marketing of its products, or follow-through on promises, but, rather, the distinct lack of empathy for those whose lives are disturbed by its technological wizardry.

[Om Malik is a technology writer, the founder of GigaOm, and a partner at TrueVentures, a venture fund based in Palo Alto (CA)]

[Commentary] 1999 had a gold rush mentality, a sense of broader mania. This time around you see more of a gross entitlement; and that’s what is different about the Bay Area.

The difference is the scale and scope of everything happening. Back then people would show up, hoping that they could merely participate in this tech-Internet thing. Now, many (if not most) show up expecting millions even if their companies fail. Just sit in a cafe -- any cafe in San Francisco -- and you hear stuff that makes you want to poke your eyes out. Founders, instead of trying to forge relationships, are getting into a pattern of expecting funding without much effort. After all, if it doesn’t work out, no harm done and there is an acqui-hire around the corner. There is an expectation that even if they don’t build an interesting product, they deserve a nice exit for trying anyway: which is troubling as far as I am concerned.

Nowadays, the babble is sourced from blogs; news blogs, expert blogs, investor blogs and founder blogs. The mainstream is once again back chasing the story. The reason why there is a boom in technology media today is because it is THE story. Technology is now part of the social fabric; it is what is causing dislocation. It is the cause of fear amongst all of us. The digitization of our society is a challenge that is both legislative and philosophical. And that is why we are seeing a greater demand for those who cover this industry.

[Commentary] What I have learned about media after spending nearly 12 years on GigaOm, pretty much most of my working life in various aspects of media, and two decades on the Internet?

• Media is not publishing alone. My definition of media? “Anything which owns attention.” This could be a game, or perhaps a platform. Ironically, the media tends to associate media with publishing -- digital or otherwise -- which in turn is too narrow a way to consider not only the media but also the reality of the competitive landscape and media-focused innovation.
• Media continues to be under the influence of deflationary forces of the Internet.
• Traffic, writers & analytics. Some media companies that rely on advertising revenue are tying journalist compensation to the traffic their story generates. It doesn’t work because it de-prioritizes writing. Writing works when publications are writing and serving the best interest of their users; numbers are good yardstick but not a way to compensate a person.
• Fake traffic and bots rule. Many people in the business agree that a lot of the traffic on the web is bot traffic, so all this traffic people talk about is faux traffic. Is a page being auto-refreshed on an open tab in your browser really useful “attention?” I don’t think so. There are many more examples of this worthless traffic.
• What could be the next successful model? In searching for the next sustainable business model or media company, the company needs to be great at “owning attention” and the company must be very clear about what it stands for.