1. FREE is the right price. Not that people aren’t willing to pay. I am sure that a subset of attendees would. But a cash outlay, of any price, raises the bar to committing to an event in advance. It just adds an incremental amount of friction in the decision as to whether or not to attend. We have great sponsors* which affords us the opportunity to accommodate the crowd with a reasonable space, but when the event was smaller with a modest (read: no) budget we found venues which held us for free. People just showed up when they heard about it and of course they could leave just as easily. But it turns out they stayed… and came back for the next event. If you polled people if they would like (a) free drink(s) or food included with an event, of course they’d say yes. But I don’t think that’s a necessary ingredient. People want other people, and if they want a drink they can buy one. I’d attribute much of the success of WebInno to the fact that it was free when few other events around town were.
2. Listen by loudly asking for feedback… It sounds cheesy but it’s true. Some people will tell you their opinion anyway, but it may not be a representative cross-section of the attendees and likely not the best sample from the people you’d ideally like to attend. But if you specifically and repeatedly ASK the entire crowd, they’ll share their voice, as everybody liked to be heard. I’ve tweaked the event in many many ways (from adding a separate room for demo tables to alphabetic check-in folders) based on direct input from attendees.
3. … but stay true to your vision. With many opinions, you’re bound to hear conflicting inputs. When soliciting feedback, I think it’s imperative that you take each suggestion and run it by a gut-check of your own vision of what you want the event to become.
4. Content isn’t your main draw – the people are – but it’s a helpful anchor. People attend events because they want to meet and see other people. Period. But I think adding content gives them something to talk about, something to hang a hat on for an initial conversation with a new acquaintance or an old friend. Programming content, in the case of WebInno the demos and sometimes speaker/panels, transform it from a mere gathering into an event.
5. The web is your friend. Organizing and promoting an event without all the helpful web applications would have been so much more difficult ten years ago. I’ve used Eventbrite for the registration logistics and can’t sing enough of its praises. The www.webinnovatorsgroup.com website is built on Wordpress with automatic updates maintained by Feedblitz. I use Constant Contact for the mass emailings. And of course social media has helped spread the word, from the nearly two thousand Twitter followers (@webinno) to all of the blog posts attendees write as follow up.
6. The details matter. How bright the lights are. Where the podium is. How the chairs are arranged. Pauses during the program. Expectations about who’s attending. These are little things that affect how the event runs and how it’s perceived afterwards, and there are a lot of them. It’s imperative that you keep on top of them. All of them.
7. Be nimble. An event changes over time, both in the size and the composition of the crowd, but also in the context of the environment. When I started WebInno it was a dozen people gathering in a bar with nametags, now it’s certainly a production. Along the way I’ve tweaked the format quite a bit, sometimes for the better and sometimes with less positive results. I’ve found that people forgive authentic mistakes but not contrived errors. When I’ve been open and honest about experimenting with new features and they don’t go well, I surely hear about it, but for the most part attendees understand and return.
8. Ask for more feedback. I write it twice (and at it to a list of seven) because this one is the most important. Events spark magic when the right people go. I often hear stories about people meeting a cofounder of their company at WebInno, finding a customer, or connecting with a new employer. All of those stories make the work in organizing the event worth it. And so to that end, if you’ve attended the Web Innovators Group recently or in even the (way) past, and you have a suggestion, idea, or comment: I am open to hearing them. Feel free to comment on this blog post, message me @davidbeisel on twitter, or send me an email at [david at web innovators group dot com].

Wrapping up, I wanted to put a quick plug for the next WebInno event which is going to be held on March 1st: http://webinno25.eventbrite.com/. It’s open to everyone in the entrepreneurial web and mobile community here in Boston and outside it.

* Thanks to the 2010 platinum co-sponsors, Microsoft and Venrock, as well as newly added gold sponsor, Silicon Valley Bank.

The one other group which seems to exude this type of thinking is venture capitalists. I can’t tell you many times I’ve been at breakfast/lunch/cocktails with another one or a couple VCs and someone talks about all of the other “bad” VCs who don’t know what they’re doing. That they’re bad for the business and should get out. (It’s funny, but it’s always remarked that the present company is undoubtedly excluded.)

Yet the reasons discussed in these conversations are always different. Some VCs are aggressive in their willingness to “pay up” for a deal in a segment which is hot; some are biased not to follow the latest fad and invest for the long term. Some VCs are thesis driven and deliberate in their investments; some prefer to be flexible in their approach because, after all, real opportunities are just that - opportunistic. Some VCs prefer very early stage; some VCs prefer to see more traction and invest later. Some are at large funds with the ability to put significant amounts of capital to work; some are at small funds which can benefit from smaller exits. Some are “entrepreneur friendly”; others push “tough love” which works. Some VCs are at new firms which are nimble; some are at firms with heritage and a track record which matters. Some are VCs young and hungry; some are wise with experience. Some are former operators and entrepreneurs, so they’ve experienced both sides of the table; some are career VCs who benefit from the pattern recognition of having been involved in so many startups.

At the end of the day, all venture capitalists will tell you that they’re above average. Go ahead – ask one. Of course, they have to be… we’re eternally optimistic or we would be doing something else.

Naturally, not all venture capital returns can be above average (…or even good, but that’s the subject of another post.) But for the entrepreneur, I’d argue that you can and SHOULD have an above-average VC. And that situation is made possible because different VCs are right for different entrepreneurs. Of all the dimensions listed above (and a myriad of others which are important), many are qualitative and a reflection of the individual’s personal style. That approach should synch well with how an entrepreneur operates and what’s going to help him best achieve the goals for his business in maximizing shareholder value. Different entrepreneurs have disparate needs and qualities which a VC can compliment and partner with, and those aspects can even change for the same entrepreneur depending on where he is in the company life-cycle.

“What do you want from your VC?” I am often surprised how many entrepreneurs who are embarking on a fundraising process who can’t answer this question well. Because while not all venture capitalists can be above average, VC-entrepreneur relationships should be. And it makes sense to know what you’re looking for when you seeking it.

And yes, of course, I do consider myself to be an above average driver.

Posted via email from genuinevc's posterous

However, over the past two months, it appears as though the trend has shifted. According to ComScore, YouTube’s market share of total videos viewed has decreased notably. I am surprised that yesterday’s ComScore press release didn’t make mention of it. Maybe they’re treading more cautious after the debacle earlier this year about predicting slowed growth in Google’s paid clicks. Part of decrease in video market share explanation can be attributed to a stronger FIM/MySpace presence, but not entirely. Also Hulu.com, a joint venture of NBC and Fox featuring full-length broadcast TV programs, officially debuted in May with .7% share. But whatever the specifics explanation attributed this current month, I wonder if this will mark the beginning of the next phase of online video where the emergence of a broader spectrum of video sites begin to take meaningful share. Even if the data is only directionally correct, there’s a kernel of truth somewhere within.

I am not suggesting that the me-too UCG sites which YouTube has clearly already beaten will make a surprising comeback. It seems that battle is over… but will they win the war? Last week’s report by the Diffisuion Group, which suggested that while UCG accounts for 42% of streams but only 4% of revenue both now and for years to come, put a damper on how big a prize YouTube has triumphed in that space. Last Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal article about YouTube’s revenues further highlighted the challenges on the monetization side.

Meanwhile, I believe we’re entering a second phase of the online video space in which the discovery mechanisms for (semi-)professional content, coupled with the increase of professional content available online in a distributed fashion, will facilitate a willingness of users to venture beyond YouTube to consume video across the net. But it won’t happen overnight. Especially when I hear that the dirty little secret from many independent video producers which maintain their own destination sites is that an overwhelming number of their views come via YouTube and not on their own distribution. While Google’s universal search in theory should facilitate this transition, given that in this case Google owns the both content (YouTube) and the discovery mechanisms (Google search), their incentive to push the latter is in conflict with their other own interest. Herein lies the problem – how do you find good video without going to YouTube?

This open question has inhibited the shift in video consumption past its original portal through to the distributed net – where the rest of web content consumption occurs. Perhaps the results of the past two ComScore surveys have signaled a change in consumers habits in which they’re finding video content wherever they just happen to be surfing anyway. The best (or at least a better) discovery mechanism will come in time, perhaps via a startup which eclipses Google while it’s conflicted… but regardless, eventually measuring “video sites traffic” will be redundant given that video will proliferate to all corners of the web on a predominant number of pages. There’s a good chance we’ll look back at this summer then and point to it as when it all really began to happen. Last week’s announcement of VideoEgg's new set of experimental video formats reminds us that we are still in the early days of this space, despite the fact that so much has happened thus far.

If the notion has reached the popular business press, then it’s indeed a pervasive story. A few weeks ago Businessweek’s article Widget’s Worth talked about “cracking the monetization code,” wondering how social widget applications are going to make money.

The old playbook six years ago was that the web distribution could be bought for a price with Google Adwords. Now the new plan for distribution is facilitation through low-cost viral strategies via Facebook and other social media. In fact, Facebook literally published a playbook just over a week ago on marketing virally through their platform. I am not arguing that distribution has been commoditized, but it does point to the fact that the bar has certainly been raised for what meaningful traffic/distribution means without a business model behind it. Not all traffic is created equal, and that is certainly more the case than it was five years ago before the mass proliferation of social media pages (and a new floor for pricing of remnant inventory).

But it goes beyond just widgets and social networks. Of course, with the numerous notable acquisitions in the advertising network space has resulted in a proliferation of companies looking to help publishers monetize their content through new technologies and packagings. And even beyond the media front, there’s a renewed sense of optimism that the Enterprise2.0 could be the next big thing, especially given that there’s real potential customers willing to pay real dollars in that domain.

Of course, with any trend, there are notable exceptions. And there should be – the true high flyers command tremendous network effects which create value well beyond an immediate revenue base. But for the typical web startup, thinking about a business from the mindset not of “how do we get big fast?” to “how do we get big fast and monetize it?” is a progression in thinking.

I found it notable that just in the past week, I’ve seen a handful startups of startups seeking Series A financing – all with significant traction on the adoption front - with pitch decks touting phrases like “projects profitability”, “roadmap to profitability… [with] high margins [to] enable positive cash flow”, and “path to profitability.” Those terms were largely out of place in most plans a year ago.

Theoretically-speaking, entrepreneurs raise capital (whether it venture or otherwise) to accelerate growth ahead of cash flows because of the opportunity-cost of time involved in self-financing organically. So in reality profitability isn’t the first order step in creating real enterprise value. As it was put by Keith Richman on a panel at the EconSM conference on Tuesday, “profitability… is a choice.” Or at least the goal is to work towards having that choice. Starting without a revenue model in mind, even if it will change a few times along the way, leaves that choice to chance. It’s always possible to get lucky, of course, but less likely so in an economic climate which is less forgiving. So it isn’t surprising to me to see startups realizing these facts and incorporate this thinking into their pitch, and more importantly, their plans. The pendulum has begun to swing back the other way...

There is certainly a natural progression of the web as a media outlet and how we use it – we first learned to receive information with this new medium, then we learned to look for it proactively. We are now so comfortable with the platform that we now are at ease spending time on it “doing”, acting, and performing endeavors in and of themselves. I would say doing is really comprised of two activities: true point-to-point person-to-person communication and performing other real stand-alone activities which are further enhanced with point-to-point communication. (Online casual gaming is a good example of the latter – we’re seeing a trend towards incorporating social functionality into gaming activity, but the services themselves are primarily about the games which are then supplemented with communication).

A notable insight here occurs if we layer the do’er construct on top two other key internet trends - the deportalization of the web and the rise of online video – from which we can gleen some interesting areas for disruptive opportunity. With traffic proliferating towards the far reaches of the net (way down the long tail, if you will), advertisers are having a more difficult time reaching these corners. Widgets are certainly one way to do this, but it isn’t necessarily always a personalized experience. The true challenge is how to identify what advertising messages a user will be receptive to (not using personally identifiable information) in the absence of the contextual relevance afforded by “receiving” and “hunting”-based content. That is essentially the prime challenge that social networks are facing; it’s hard to monetize their content because it's difficult to know what people want when they’re doing and not receiving/hunting. Behavioral ad networks are beginning to solve this problem, but only partially. And of course we’re seeing experimentation play out (with difficulty) with Facebook’s recent Beacon episode. It’s still going to take a few years and numerous innovations by startups (not just the large social networks and other social services) to figure out how ads should effectively reach the “doers” on every corner of the net.

The other intersection of this construct, with the online video adoption trend, indicates we’re still just in the early stages of being comfortable with the video format. Almost all of the video we watch online is in receiving mode. People fire up YouTube and watch the latest most popular clip forwarded to them, or you turn to Hulu to catch an episode of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” that was missed last week on FX. We are just beginning to hunt for video, but it’s really right around the corner as a mainstream use-case. Soon users and producers will be creating more informational-based content in addition to the entertainment-based video content which is the current norm. The web’s freeing from the binds of 500 cable channels will have the same effect on video that unshackling from physical printed materials had on text. The shift to universal search by Google (i.e. incorporating video segments in addition to text pages into search results) will really facilitate this change. Many VCs have anticipated this shift to hunting video with numerous fundings of how-to sites over the past few months, but there are many opportunities for informational-based video content for hunting consumers beyond the how-to. And in following this schema, the intersection of doing and video is one step further off, but it will come much sooner than it did with text+image content. YouTube just this past week hinted towards incorporating live video onto the site, which is potentially just one manifestation.

Kunz concludes his article essentially acknowledging widgets do actually work, just that some widgets are going to be more effective than others - it depends if and how it engages the right audience. At the end of the day, widgets are merely one arrow in an online advertisers’ quiver, not the only shotgun. They’re just one piece of the ever evolving puzzle of the web, which is “doing” more now than ever.

Getting the gang back together, so to speak, should show above all else that each individual truly wants and needs all of the others to participate. All of them realize that a company isn’t built with one individual alone. It’s a strong indicator that every person brings a certain set of skills, experiences, and mindset to the company that are complementary to the others on the team – otherwise given a blank slate they would choose otherwise.

Moreover, when a team decides to launch a startup together for a second (or third or fourth…) time, it’s a clear demonstration that they have been able work with each other. Despite differences in opinion that might (read: should) arise when building a new company, they all respect each other enough to work together in a de novo situation. And so the risk for personality conflict amongst the team is lessened.

Yet there are still issues and questions that arise in this situation which are a result. Who is missing from the group from the last time? Why wasn’t s/he included? Who will fill their shoes? Should we fill their shoes? Also, the dynamic of having a team with a history together can bring baggage from a previous situation into it – there’s potential for leftover touchy-feely issues which weren’t resolved and could remerge or be exasperated this time around.

Having a prior history with a founding or management team can also negatively impact those newcomers to the company who weren’t part of the old team. The beauty of a startup is that it’s an organization starting fresh - unencumbered to move quickly and dynamically. But when there’s a common outside shared experience with a significant set of folks, then it can potentially create a divided culture of those who were there the last time around and those who are new, which hurts morale and likely performance. Additionally, it can make others reluctant to join because they’re missing the set of experiences or worry about integrating into the team. (People don’t join a startup to hear about “the good old days.”) And finally, a common set of experiences can lead people to the same conclusions and inhibit fresh ideas or novel approaches.

On the face, having people in a startup who have worked together in the past is positive sign. Brining the team back together again? Good. Now it’s important to remember to leave the old baggage behind and sincerely open the team to new members. Having the old crew gives you a leg up, but it’s only a start.

Almost all of the analysis which I've read has been in the context of the search engine wars, and how these recent efforts are a last-ditch effort for the non-Google search engines to play catch up. That's a fine story, but I think that there’s another fundamental trend at play here. It's a natural evolution of search to include other content types other than links, and I think that the real story is centered around the ramifications of what content (especially video) will now get featured as results given the introduction of universal search. It's one thing to find video when you’re looking for it; it's another thing to find video when you don’t know you’re looking for it in the first place. Increasingly we're seeing video as included results for terms which a consumer wouldn't necessarily think to search for on at a dedicated site or search engine, but she will find incredibly useful nonetheless.

I've seen a number of conversations about universal search in the SEO trade circles (e.g. universal & blended vertical search was a hot topic at the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose last month), but I have heard a lot less buzz about it in startup circles. To me, there is potential underserved opportunity here. When people begin to find video and other content "serendipitously," it begs the question how the content got there in the first place. Many great internet businesses were built upon leveraging natural search as a distribution mechanism, and I see the shift towards universal search as opening a door for new players to enter what was a marketplace that previously gave unfair advantage to incumbents on a specific keyword term. Much like the situation for natural text search in the late 90's, there is a new land grab for top search placement for these new media formats (like images, podcast, and video). This return of the wild west scenario puts startups and established players alike on equal footing, because these algorithms are being established anew and don’t favor an incumbent authoritative source.

In fairness, the transition, at least for Google, has been a measured and calculated process. When Google launched universal search this spring, some commentators accurately reflected this move as a lengthy process as opposed to an overnight switch. "I don't expect we're going to see wholesale changes in the near future… I'd assume that whatever Google does, they'll do deliberately and cautiously," said Matt Greitzer, a national practice lead for search marketing at Avenue A/Razorfish, back in May. (As a demonstration of the lack of anywhere close to a full transition, ironically, currently a video of an interview about the future of search and universal search with guru Mike Grehan doesn’t show up as a video result in Google when searching for "seo universal search," but rather as a text link.)

Perhaps the buzz this week with the other search engines will facilitate a quicker transition towards integrated results on all engines, and the opportunity about placement in those results will become more salient. Whether it's in categories of travel, shopping, and other transaction-oriented content, video and other media types will be useful and important search results in the coming years. Startups and other fast-movers have a unique opportunity to participate in that shift beyond just text links.

(Special thanks to Daphne Kwon who helped me think through some of the issues in this post.)

From my perspective, it’s worth exploring the role of digital media in this movement. How can the web further facilitate the lessening of the impact that individuals have on the environment? While the separate CleanTech energy sector has been in hot pursuit by VCs over the past couple years, I think it’s interesting to note what ways the internet alone is becoming an integral component in the overall green movement.

I see four categories where The Green Web is emerging, with numerous websites:

1. Providing an aggregated trusted source of useful information. Startup sites like TreeHugger (which also has a site called Hugg, a Digg for environmental news) offer news, culture, and instructive information. Big media companies are also jumping on board – MSNBC has an Environment channel online and Discovery acquired the aforementioned TreeHugger company just last week). Large non-media branding-based corporations, like Starbucks, in an attempt to enhance their eco-friendly image are also sharing information via the web.

2. Connecting people to other people and useful services. For example, there’s now a Facebook Carpool app which “makes sharing a ride safer and easier by using Facebook to find people going in the same direction.” Boston-based GoLoco is pursuing the same ends with a stand-alone web service. Both are perfect examples of leveraging the web to connect people towards a greater environmental good. In addition, the web can act as the perfect vehicle to connect people to specific services, like purchasing carbon offsets in an effort for individuals to live carbon-neutral (ZeroFootPrint, TerraPass, and NativeEnergy are just a few companies doing this).

3. Becoming an integral component of a service. In some cases, the web actually is a fundamental component in a green service. As illustrations, Greendimes allows consumers to reduce their unwanted junk mail and Earth Class Mail (fka Remote Control Mail) allows users to read their mail online, reducing paper handling costs and recycling in a central facility. Without the web, these services would hardly exist or would look dramatically different.

4. Replacing functions that are otherwise less eco-friendly. It’s interesting to consider virtual meetings in Second Life and other virtual worlds as replacement for flying people to meet in person. Though some question this approach given the amount of servers/electricity in creating these spaces, examples like Cisco using virtual worlds for a number of events and interactions are surely notable.

In all of these cases, different shades of the Green Web take a step in the direction towards better planet – and do so in a potentially profitable way, making it a win-win situation. What other innovative green technology-enabled services will the web help facilitate?

And so I thought it would be good post to highlight what are some very important uber-trends which starting to emerge in the digital media space. To most readers, they likely may seem obvious, but perhaps serve as a reminder what’s likely in store. And where there is change there is opportunity; the following seven identified trends are perfect opportunities for startups to leverage:

Seven Coming Digital Uber-trends which Are Ripe for Startup Opportunities

1. The digitalization of transportation experience. Our cars are transforming from motorized transportation into digital immersion experiences. With in-dash devices ranging from GPS, to satellite radio, to integrated telephone controllers, the place where many Americans spend much of their day is going digital. Also, other transportation experiences, namely public transportation, is being affected by a digitalization trend – everything from digital signage in subways to infomation touchscreens in taxis is modifying what we do when going from here to there.

2. Internet’s facilitation of green lifestyle. With concern over the environment becoming a progressively more relevant issue, the web provides a natural vehicle for connecting people to resources and services which lessen impact of individuals on environment. We are at the beginning of “The Green Web” which will provide individuals within our society a leveraged way to positively affect the planet.

3. Influence and word-of-mouth marketing facilitated by online social software. Marketers are increasingly concerned about truly engaging with consumers as the effectiveness of traditional advertising erodes. Social software (in its broadest sense) coupled with the principles of word-of-mouth marketing will provide for successfully reaching potential customers via the most trusted source – people they already know.

4. Fundamental shift demographics of internet usage. The demographics of internet utilization are rapidly changing. Baby-boomers are getting older. International traffic and other languages are will be soon dwarfing that of the U.S. and English. Domestically, we have a growing population of youth who have never known life without internet and mobile phone. Couple these and other demographic shifts together and the internet audience of today looks very different in the not-so-distant future.

5. Mobile consumption of information. A day where everyone carries a powerful hand-held device (which includes GPS and significant processing power and memory on a higher-bandwidth network) will allow information to proliferate in a way setting which is just becoming available to a small segment of power-users. Location-relevant information ubiquity is dauntingly exciting.

6. Wide proliferation of video. While in the age of YouTube it may seem trivial to mention, but I believe it can’t be overstated. We’re moving to a world where every web page, every device, every screen will be have some type of video content. The long-tail of video content will be wagging.

7. Digital information becoming increasingly personalized with greater user control and choice. While search as proactive information-seeking reigns today, the notion of passive personalized discovery which is already taking hold will become ever more important with an abundance of information. User control and choice in that process is becoming integral in the content consumption process.

In hindsight, it’s easy to look back at companies that emerged on the wave of past important trends. Successful endeavors have an easier time with the wind against their backs. Fifteen years from now, I would be surprised looking back if many of these above categories don’t have enduring successful companies which were borne out of capitalizing on them.

(Note: This post was inspired by and largely based on internal discussions that entire Venrock team about megatrends in our industry.)

The same day I read Giga Om’s post on his “long standing belief that social networks are going to become mere commodities.“ (He uses the example of Ning adding additional networks on its platform, decreasing the individual value of each individual network, as a proof point.)

On the whole, he is right. The value of a social network is not in the functionality and technology itself. Feature parity should be achieved rather quickly on any new set of innovative aspects that a MySpace, Facebook, or anyone will introduce. Rather, like all media properties (whether digital or otherwise), a social network has value based on:
1. The information contained within it. In this case, the information about the friends and connections in network.
2. The signal value communicated to society about who a user is as a person. In this case, what being on a social network represents to others.

Essentially, what really matters is brand.

What does it mean for someone to be on Facebook? What does it mean to be on MySpace? What does it mean to be on the dozens and dozens other general-interest social networks or vertical ones which are profiled daily on Mashable. In other words, what does it say about you, who you are as a person? The answer to this question is one reason why the essay about “viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace” resonated throughout the blogosphere over the past two weeks.

In the end, each media property means something different to a different set of people. It’s the brand that’s important, not the functionality.

Take an analog analog here… a magazine. Readers of a magazine like Time could care less about the printing press used to make the publication, whether it was inked with the latest technology or an antiquated one. What they do care about is:
1. The information contained within it. In this case, a weekly synopsis of the news.
2. The signal value communicated to society about who they are as a person. In this case a person who has The Economist or Us Weekly on his coffee table is potentially saying something different about who he is as opposed to Time.

I signed up for a Facebook account because:
1. Many people I know and trust and respected are all of a sudden using it, and I assumed that because they find it useful, so would I.
2. It’s reached a tipping point where it potentially no longer is about high school and college students, but rather my peer set.

There’s an interesting meme going through the blogosphere in the past week asking “now that we have social networks are blogs obsolete?” Tony Hung argues that rise of social networking sites doesn’t mean the twilight of blogging is near, but rather that it is a different medium than the social networks, as blogging is “about creating and developing [and publishing] well thought out opinions.”

Along those lines, Nivi just posted a recommendation to everyone to start a vertical blog rather than a personal one. He says a vertical blog is “… for your readers, … focused, … branded [my bold], …[and] attracts a specific audience.” He concludes by writing, “Personal blogs are dead, long live vertical blogs.” And I think he’s right. To me it’s looking increasingly like social networks are platforms for communicating information about yourself and blogs are platforms for communication about a specific topic. The exception, however, is for those who consider their own name/identity a brand and a vertical subject in and of itself. (I don’t, so I personally maintain both vertical blogs of GenuineVC and that of the WebInnovatorsGroup. Now if I could only find the time to also launch a very niche vertical content blog at my domain BostonsBestBurgers.com…)

Again, what matters here again is the brand: what info it represents and what it conveys about the reader.

When I explore a potential VC investment in a consumer-facing online media startup opportunity, one of the questions I ask is: “what is the long-term potential to build a long-term brand?” With any media property, it either needs to have wide mass appeal with an adequate monetization rate or a niche appeal with a very high monetization rate. Whether or not it has a social element to it depends on the audience. But in reality, from here on out, I suspect almost all of new online media will be some type social media.

So, yes, I’ve signed up for Facebook. Now whether I actually continue to use it is another matter… it has to continually satisfy these above two requirements.