Blogosphere going a bit mad over Jason Calacanis comments at Affiliate Summit. He’s an ‘aul pro at getting people talking. My favourite quote:
You guys really think small. Holding up a six figure check is frankly pathetic. It’s desperate. The industry I’m in, like the Internet industry, like Web 2.0 industry elitist, you know. Kevin Rose, whatever. They would laugh at that. It’s sad. It’s embarrassing.
This is just the kind of bullshit I hate, faggots in Silicon Valley going down the route of brainstorming a shitty idea, sucking off VCs for money who probably don’t have the first clue how the Net works and then blowing all that cash on fancy offices and Tesla Roadsters, I dunno.
One web 2.0 company in a thousand ‘takes off’ with a loyal band of users to create the content and is hyped up until they’re bought out by one of the real big boys with too much money and nothing to do with it. What happens to the other 999 companies? They fail, VCs lose their money and the founders go back to their real estate jobs or whatever. It’s like an Internet gold rush, some get really rich but most don’t.
Affiliate marketing is the complete opposite, if you work hard and do your research you *will* succeed. I don’t know many people pulling in ‘pathetic’ six figure cheques but I knows loads, myself included who are making a decent living doing this. Your own boss, your own hours, neither clients or managers to listen to. Bliss.
And I don’t think Kevin Rose is laughing, or should be laughing. I’d love to know how much the company has lost in the past few years. What’s the revenue model? The ads are terribly targeted and I’d guess the loyal band of pre-pubescent teenage gamers don’t have much money to spend anyway. Don’t matter anyway, it will most likely be bought in the near future by a traditional media company for a silly number only to be written off on the sly in a few years when they realise their folly.