Re: It's not just singing cats

I couldn't agree more, Eric. I always chuckle when people point to the worst parts of YouTube, as if that is the totality of YouTube. Truth is, it's the same argument I hear from my friends locally who learn that Kathlyn and I work on the net. "Oh you run a porn site, huh?" they have sometimes joked. "No, we visit different sites than you do," I laugh. It's sad to me that people focus on the worst elements and miss what is great about something.

In my opinion, the internet is right up there with the wheel and the printing press as one of the most important inventions in the history of humanity. The fact that dumb viral marketing attempts and porno exist on it, doesn't take away the fact that also on it are things that when I need to research an idea, I can always find out more on the net than I can on my old Encyclopedia Britannica.

I also wonder at the people who argue, "Show me the money," whenever the net or podcasting, etc., are being discussed. The same things were said to Kathlyn and I when we started doing this years ago. But today, the COW has seven fulltime employees, has many paid writers, has people who create DVD training and make a great annual salary, etc., etc. The COW also has free magazines, podcasts, newsletters, a great site with a huge tutorials library, etc., and all these services are offered free of charge to users (even though much of it costs a great deal to make).

It all comes out of something that was built gratis and into which we poured a huge investment of over a million dollars -- spread out across about seven years -- before it ever made enough to be in the black.

But today the COW is stronger than all of its competitors combined and does more traffic than every industry trade magazine (and their associated web "communities") combined.

Was it easy? No. Did it make sense to many people? No. In fact, many said we were crazy and that it was a fool's errand to think that we could build something free into a business. The model didn't make sense to them and to many, it still doesn't.

But the world is changing and those who try to follow the old business models that worked before will find out that in the Brave New World, that model is not a guaranteed recipe for success.

I am not saying that old business models are dead, merely that the old models work in many cases but not in all. New models are rising up to replace some of them and carving out your place in the future of a changing market often means that you invest in something ahead of the curve, before its proven. Follow your vision and walk your gamble.

Once things are proven and safe, the competition is fierce and making yourself stand out among your peers gets increasingly more difficult as the hills proliferate with gold miners looking to make it rich.

Change is a rough thing to swallow but to grow a new media business sometimes means that you have to define what is "new" and what the future will look like before it gets here.

Thanks for your post, Eric.

Best always,

Ron Lindeboom