Silicon Valley move over? NYC bullish on next Internet wave
Insider Flash! Web 2.0 “prediction” heard today on the “street,” the media capital of the world’s streets, that is:
Newspapers will be the largest video owners online, NOT broadcasters. What’s more, when broadcast voice is on text, a new market will erupt.
Who says and why?
Morgan took to the NYC stage with fellow Silicon Alley veterans to share with new media professionals what’s great about doing technology business in New York, and how it can even get better, for a panel convened by the New York Media Information Exchange Group, also including Fred Seibert, Founder, NextNewNetworks and Scott Meyers, CEO, About.com.
In a “Roundtable on the Relationship Between Big Companies and Small Ones,” ideas were exchanged on the “interesting struggles” taking place in Internet business today and how to each side can “figure out our value to each other.”
While Mr. Silicon Valley himself, Michael TechCrunch Arrington, feigns Internet depression via his latest Web 2.0 manifesto (“Silicon Valley could use a downturn right now”), Silicon ALLEY is alive and kicking, big time.
Arrington’s newest not quite ode to Web 2.0 entrepreneurs may be “Times are good, money is flowing, and Silicon Valley sucks,” but for NYC Internet entrepreneurs, “Times are good, money is flowing and Silicon Alley RULES!”
While suggesting there is (almost) no better place to do new media business, panelists nevertheless underscored that big NYC opportunities also engender big NYC risks; Silicon Alley success does not come in a NYC minute, and it does not come easily.
MEYERS: About .com is the 13th most visited site on the Web in the U.S., employs a staff of 150 full-time and 600 writers and books $80 million in revenues.
Challenges of being part of a NYC “big media company,” The New York Times:
1) It is difficult to determine an “absolute right path” for a company with a core brand 20, 50 or 100 years old.
2) Wall Street dominates NYC and the Street’s pressure around numbers and quarterly earnings means it is “not easy to navigate the future of a company.”
3) It's easy to get good media content people in NYC because they are used to “slave wages” anyway; Sales people either perform or they are out. On the engineering side, though, Silicon Valley has the advantgage.
NYC engineers are trained in the telecom and Wall Street “protecting property” IT frame of mind. They may be able to “bullet proof” stuff, but on the Internet, consumers “need to be able to use it.”
Wikipedia? Hard to compete against something that doesn’t make money. Other than Jimmy Wales, we can’t even put a picture up on the wall as a target, because we don’t even know who the writers are.
SEIBERT: Big media companies are worried that “Google will Tsunami them” and to prevent a Google “tidal wave,” have three prong strategies:
1) Build out core businesses while trying to bullet-proof them. The hope is to be able to continue to exist on the basis upon which businesses have thrived to date.
2) Create direct relationships with the people who might have solutions to business problems via partnerships, acquisitions…
3) Start new things from scratch outside of the core business to be in new businesses from the ground-up pre-emptively.
MORGAN: There is no better city to start a business from the ground-up. Start under the radar and build with early adopters, which could be the very companies thought to be the competition.
To be successful, a start-up needs a “defensible” idea and 24 months lead time. Key problems to solve are:
What is everyone missing? What is worth going after? How can incumbents be aligned?
PLUS, put a photo of your competitor’s CTO on the wall for target practice, AND “Refuse To Lose!”