Wassup in 2008 for Broadband Mechanics
Since I’ve already created a post which had some general predictions for 2008 - here’s a timeline of specific goals and milestones we at Broadband Mechanics will be working on for 2008.
Q1 will start with a bus trip to CES where I’ll research DLAs and the Living Room, Car, Game consoles and mobile worlds. Its been 15 years since I’ve done a CES. Is there anybody out there DLAs for any of these platforms?
Q1 will also see me go to Vancouver twice, back to India, Milan, London, Squaw Valley - and to NYC, Wash D.C., LaLa and Florida - several times - in Q1.
Q1 is when our Sac Kings site will go live and when the Bell Video Store (enhanced with social features) will go live. Q1 is also when a PeopleAggregator system done for the TimesofIndia will go live and a mega-project we’re working on for Radio-One - will be just about done. Q1 is when we start to hire more coders, project managers and sales folks - so send your resumes my way!
Q1 is also when the ‘bringing social to software‘ meme will start to spread more, where viral videos will continue to be the greatest marketing trend since sliced bread and where several friends will have breakthroughs and acquisitions.
Funding is on our horizon now that we don’t need the money and growth is the key word.
Q2 - is when things get interesting. We’ll have a critical # of scalable social networks live - which we control the source code to. These customers of ours signed up with us explicitly so they can take the ride into the world of inter-connected social networks. So we’re going to connect all our networks together for the benefits of not only the end-users of these social networks but also the network vendors as well.
This effort is not for a demo or research for some intellectual reason or to satisfy the identity wonks. We’re going to be promotion, contest and incentive driven - with each network offering some sort of spiff, giveaway, reward or something to new users to bring in their friends and gobs of fun activities to do - BETWEEN different network memberships.
Hopefully these efforts will provide real benefits to the network vendors, even though it’s what the members have been asking for. There’s been a disconnect between what members want and what’s supposedly the ’smart thing to do by social network vendors.
Well that’s all about to come to an end!
Loads of skepticism has been heaped onto the principles of an open social networking world - but we’re going to PROVE that there’s PROFIT, SUCCESS and HAPPINESS in letting users move around on their own free will.
Keeping users locked in is a doomed strategy - and even though lots of important players have pledged to support OpenSocial - I’m afraid they’re just going to allow widgets to come INTO their systems and not let their users take their data, social graphs and profile records OUT of these data silos.
THIS is the battle we’re fighting - and we’ll (BBM and our customers) be able to show by summer the BENEFITS of letting users keep control over their own data.
That’s our pledge for Q2.
Its time to take it to the canals!
Q3 - will see the premiere of our new product. We call it a Persona Editor and I’d have to kill you if I gave you any more details about it. This time around - we’ll be in the right place at the right time - and we’ll offer it to end-users and make all those startup lists, TechCrunch whatsamacallits, Demo who’skebBobs and whatnot events. We’ll make sure to suck up to Arrington, Om, Rafat, Niall Kennedy and Richard MacManus. And we’ll put a smile onto John Musser, Lucas Gonze and Chris Messina’s face.
What we need are two-way APIs to be pervasive throughout the industry. What this means is that it has to be as simple to suck data OUT of a system as it is to spit it back IN. Then our Persona Editor will shine.
So please - all you API services, systems and vendors - make your APIs symetrical!
Q4 - will see us hit several million dollars in revenue for the year and our first rejection of a sale. We’re in this for the long haul. I had one billion dollar company taken away from me and this time - I’m on this ride til we’re done - which is never - so take that Mr. Venture Capitalist!
Being an entrepreneur is about giving people jobs and career paths and helping to improve the world. Making money is key, but not the #1 issue. Happiness is #1 and getting paid to do what you love to do. I’ve done it before and no one has ever lost money investing in me - so here we go!
By Q4 we’ll have a new president - and if it’s a Republican - we’ll be leaving the country. You see some of us are tired - just plain tired - and Venice sure is a nice place to hang out in!
