Frothy fear

how many people read the A list

When I was eating sushi and chatting with Jeremy Wright, CEO of B5 Media, and Don MacAskill, CEO of SmugMug, Don, at one point, pointed out that SmugMug had 150,000 paying customers and was profitable. I answered back “oh, I guess you aren’t a Web 2.0 company then” and we all had a big laugh.

But that laugh has been bothering me. Comedy works best when it’s reflecting a truth no one wants to admit in public. I’m noticing something in the valley. The newer companies are struggling to get noticed. Are struggling to figure out how to get outside the TechCrunch/TailRank/TechMeme/Reddit/Digg/Slashdot/Om/Scoble bubble.

I’ve been awfully cheery of late, but I’ve been comparing traffic notes with bloggers, journalists, CEOs, and other geeks and there simply isn’t that big a pool of traffic out there unless you can get some hot search term on Google or Yahoo.

Hint: what’s Jeremy’s most profitable blog? It ain’t about Ruby on Rails. It’s about Lindsay Lohan.

The thing I’m noticing is that outside the valley most people use search engines to find things. Google, Yahoo, AOL, MSN, etc.

How strong is that? Well, insiders tell me that one of the top search terms over at Yahoo is actually “Google.” And one of the top search terms at Google is “Yahoo.”

Why is that? Because most people outside the little tech bubble we live in every day don’t know how to use Web browsers. They have been trained to use the search box.

Not many people are talking about how to get outside of our little tech bubble. At least not in public.

But Joe Kraus, CEO of Jotspot, let slip that he’s hired a person who is just analyzing how good their keyword advertising is working. He wouldn’t tell me his favorite Google keyword. Why not? Cause that’s how he’s going to escape the bubble and provide a return on investment for his investors.

I wish we had a conference on “how to find customers outside of the tech bubble?” The entire industry could use some creative thinking there.

Getting outside the frothy bubble