Terry Semel doesn’t get it.<\/p>\n
The problem with the straight press is they love all the old horses.\u00c2\u00a0 Until a new horse comes riding in to steal the old horses’ thunder.\u00c2\u00a0 And all eyes avert.<\/p>\n
The Street doesn’t predict change, it only reflects it.<\/p>\n
Case in point, Barry Diller.\u00c2\u00a0 He was profiled as God everywhere from the "New Yorker" to the Hollywood trades.\u00c2\u00a0 Barry went on an hejira and said home shopping via TV was the answer, the FUTURE!\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody bowed at his feet and followed him as he slipped from a man who created a fourth TV network to someone rich but irrelevant.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, Barry now controls TicketMaster, and some dating sites and stuff, but you don’t see his name in the paper too often.\u00c2\u00a0 God, the last time he got ink was when he got paid big time for the sale of Universal’s TV operations to NBC.\u00c2\u00a0 A positively old wave deal.\u00c2\u00a0 You see Barry doesn’t count.\u00c2\u00a0 He turned out to know nothing other than the business he grew up in, television.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, he’s mustered some assets and created a business, but isn’t it funny that he BOUGHT everything and grew essentially NOTHING?!<\/p>\n
The future belongs to the tech guys.<\/p>\n
It’s the pipe.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s the math, as "BusinessWeek" just said.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not lunch, but the ability to CODE!\u00c2\u00a0 And being of a generation that understands what people who use the Net actually WANT!<\/p>\n
Kids are not dying to buy TV shows from the Net.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, if they want them they’ll download them, just like music.\u00c2\u00a0 To the younger generation, the Net is a free-for-all.\u00c2\u00a0 You buy a shitload of tech gear, computers, digital cameras, videocameras, create your own shit and EXHIBIT IT on the Web.\u00c2\u00a0 Getting noticed, getting SEEN, COMMUNICATING, is more important than making money, at least at first.\u00c2\u00a0 God do the oldsters not know kids.\u00c2\u00a0 Today’s generation isn’t about winners and losers but being a member of the COMMUNITY!<\/p>\n
Look at Google’s foray into the video sphere.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ll host content, FOREVER, FOR FREE!\u00c2\u00a0 And now, if you want to charge for said content, they’ll let you.\u00c2\u00a0 And, almost a la eBay, you can constantly adjust the price.\u00c2\u00a0 Does this resemble the Hollywood model WHATSOEVER?<\/p>\n
And then you’ve got Terry Semel and Yahoo.\u00c2\u00a0 Boy is this guy fucking up.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s gone on a shopping spree.\u00c2\u00a0 For EXECUTIVE TALENT!\u00c2\u00a0 And who has he signed up?\u00c2\u00a0 Not geeks, but Hollywood dealmakers.\u00c2\u00a0 Wow, you go and hire the guys who MISSED the tech revolution to STEER the tech revolution?\u00c2\u00a0 Wouldn’t this be like Apple Computer paying a premium for Andy Lack?\u00c2\u00a0 Or David Munns?\u00c2\u00a0 In the latter case someone who does know how to break a record, but doesn’t know SHIT about technology?<\/p>\n
Now I’m not saying Yahoo is going to fade overnight.\u00c2\u00a0 But propped up by a resurgent online advertising market, Yahoo is spending in ALL THE WRONG DIRECTIONS!\u00c2\u00a0 Because Terry Semel is not a geek.\u00c2\u00a0 And, to run an enterprise like Yahoo, you need a geek.<\/p>\n
Yup, someone who sits in front of the computer for hours.\u00c2\u00a0 Who’s purchased something from craigslist.org.\u00c2\u00a0 Who’s IM’ed four people at once.\u00c2\u00a0 Who downloaded from Napster.\u00c2\u00a0 Who’s conversed via iChat AV.\u00c2\u00a0 Someone who’s on the pulse, who understands the market, as well as John Kalodner knew hair bands in the eighties.<\/p>\n
The geeks shall inherit the earth.\u00c2\u00a0 Make no mistake.\u00c2\u00a0 Baby boomers and Wall Street will find out last.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not Hollywood redux.\u00c2\u00a0 Do you see the labels solving their problems?\u00c2\u00a0 Or movie studios?\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas a renegade like Steve Jobs keeps pulling rabbits out of his hat, knowing that yesterday is already history and the old tinseltown mantra rules.\u00c2\u00a0 As in WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR ME LATELY??<\/p>\n
Rupert Murdoch bought MySpace and curtailed free speech.\u00c2\u00a0 And is now going to turn it into a portal.\u00c2\u00a0 Yeah, that sounds like a recipe for success.\u00c2\u00a0 Like all these users can’t be turned off and go somewhere else essentially INSTANTLY!\u00c2\u00a0 There’s not a geek in the world who would have made this decision.\u00c2\u00a0 Geeks know it’s about the user experience, and trust.\u00c2\u00a0 If you can trust a Hollywood executive you just haven’t met one.<\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Terry Semel doesn’t get it. The problem with the straight press is they love all the old horses.\u00c2\u00a0 Until a new horse comes riding in to steal the old horses’ thunder.\u00c2\u00a0 And all eyes avert. The Street doesn’t predict change, it only reflects it. Case in point, Barry Diller.\u00c2\u00a0 He was profiled as God everywhere […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-online"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s96vPs-yahoo","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}