Why entrepreneurs are, in fact, crazy people

Crazy people see things that most 'normal' people don't.  Bugs, people trying to kill them, invisible pants...whatever.  Smart people see crazy people and think, "dude, there's nothing there..you're crazy".

Om Malik doesn't know me but he must think I see giant ants or something. 

Yesterday was the reference point that most technology people use for live blogging:  a MacWorld keynote.  To be fair, that's the kind of event that brought about the term..so generally, I accept that it sometimes takes me a little effort to explain the CoveritLive gets more traffic from a snowstorm or our Belgian users covering the problems with Fortis. 

Om sent out a tweet yesterday saying (and it was less that 140 characters...I wonder, how do you NOT take a tweet out of context if they're all just one liners) that tweeting will effectively kill off live blogging.  He's far from a dumb guy from what I've read and I'm pretty sure I'm not too stupid so am I just crazy?

Usually, a truly new software idea has to be something other people haven't thought of yet (unlikely) or have dismissed (usually the case) as being unimportant.  So, I suppose Om's tweet valdiates that, at a minimum, CoveritLive is going after something new...which i guess is a start.

Here's why Twitter and the apps developed around Twitter don't kill CoveritLive:

1. depth of reporting and context matters.

2.  immediate interaction with readers is never going away.  this is probably one of the most important contributions CiL made to the 'live blogging' category via polls and the management of thousands of comments

3.  Evan Williams and I don't see each other as substitute goods.  They just overlap a little.  Just like IM, email and the telephone do.  Btw, I love the Borg-like qualities of Twitter.  I do think it's a true, rare killer app (and way more important than CiL for different reasons).

4.  Lots of people I didn't know before I started CiL agree with me.  And considering they had no incentive to do so, I feel it's pretty valid.

5.  Software that creates a whole product solution still wins in the mainstream.  Twitpics and polls and other apps built around Twitter just make things complicated for mainstream users.

Usually it's only at the end of the movie we find out if the crazy guy was right (Randy Quaid in Independence Day comes to mind) so let's talk at the end of '09 and see where things are at.

Comments

[Lex]

Love that! From another crazy.