Usually when Dave McClure, Angel Investor and Hustler, has something to say on his blog, it is said with passion, drama, and a pinch of angst. But he’s almost always right and he makes you believe it in the end with unequivocal points and thoughts.
Because this post is so utterly important and I firmly believe it and expect you to as well, I’m going to channel Dave in this post. If you’re offended by language, leave now.
Why? Because mobile is the most important thing going on in technology today and you all are sitting around talking about social media. That’s right, I said it.
You are talking about social media and the Old Spice campaign like it’s something awesome. You’re circle-jerking each other by promoting products and bullshit companies simply because your friend you drank with at Affiliate Summit is doing the social media. You’re holding it wrong!
Do you even know what their business strategies are? Do they have anything worth talking about besides their marketing campaign. They are just using Twitter and you’re praising them for their ingenuity because “they get it”.
Fuck. That. Shit.
They have no fucking idea that most of their customers have a phone and a significant percentage of those phones are smart phones. They are completely ignoring mobile and you’re enabling that bullshit by focusing on their conversations and engagement.
Fuck. That. Shit.
Here’s the reality. The next generation of the web isn’t bullshit REAL-TIME anything. We’re overloaded on real-time. Real-time is what causes your friends to look at their phones the entire night while you’re trying to socialize with them. What you need to be thinking is the RIGHT-TIME web. What do you need to know right now based on your interests and focus? Can that be delivered via the most ubiquitous device on the planet – the cell phone?
Instead, you’re worried about making sure your colleagues have their dicks sucked by the public.
Fuck. That. Shit.
The order of operations for the next-gen web is a simple formula. The RIGHT data to the RIGHT person at the RIGHT time on the RIGHT device. Data first, Device LAST.
But you don’t get it. You’re talking about iPhone apps. You think the iPhone, the iPad, and the Android will save us. You don’t realize that mobile constitutes more than those devices. You’re running companies that specialize only on a single device and app. Yea, I’m looking at you, Gowalla.
You’ve missed the damn boat.
You think that the next-gen web is about conversations. Hello? That started in 2004 when Facebook was invented and became mainstream in 2006 when Facebook opened up and Twitter launched.
The train has left the station.
You think the next-gen web is all about the here and now. Do you not under stand the word “next”? You don’t think proactively. You repeat talking points.
Fuck. That. Shit.
We wouldn’t be having to get people together in a crisis and figure out how to mobilize relief workers if the “right-now” web was operational and people weren’t narrow-mindedly thinking about how an iPhone app can help Haitians when most of the population of Haiti can’t afford an iPhone, and probably have old Nokia T9 phones capable of only SMS, if they own a phone at all.
You’re not thinking about mobile. You’re not thinking about semantic data and how it operates in a mobile form-factor.
And because of that, you’re missing the boat.
Photo by ilamont.com