Amateur is not below professional. It’s just another way of doing [media]. The root of the word amateur is love, and someone who does something for love is an amateur. Someone who does something to pay the bills is a professional. The amateurs have [more integrity than] the professionals. If you’re an amateur you have less conflict of interest and less reason not to tell your truth than if you have to pay the bills and please somebody else.

I’m not a Dave Winer fan, but I must say I love this quote. It exemplifies all that is great with the independent web. I’m not saying that I totally agree with the fact that professionals will have less integrity due to having to pay the bills, but it’s nice when you don’t have to worry and you can speak freely. That’s the joy of writing at Oreo CEO, no ads, no comments and really no caring if people visit or not.

We are starting our slow push into new forms of media to portray our content (eg. video and sound) and looking at how everything else is done around our Network, should our audience expect professional grade quality video production? In a sense you could say that our videos are very amateur. If you have seen any of our dance videos you now it’s just us being impromptu in front of our cameras. No special lighting or equipment. It’s simply us being us.

So does that lessen the value of what we have created or does it increase the value of the Network because we are connecting with our audience in new ways?

*And no not all amateurs are honest or even intelligent. I just liked that title.

Originally posted on May 8, 2006 @ 2:14 pm

I asked my good friend Mike Davidson a couple weeks ago if he would be willing to do an interview with me about his company Newsvine. This will be my first interview and I can already tell you the questions I have are loaded and should definitely entertain. Let BusinessWeek ask the boring shit.

In any case, I thought it would be a good idea to stick in some questions from the audience, so leave a question in the comments and I will make sure to ask the five I pick and he will have no choice but to answer.

Besides that I have been knee deep in a Myspace case study. I’m a very social person who goes out a lot and never understood the Myspace phenomenon until I really got to use it and from a business perspective it’s brilliant. So many great lessons that can be learned from it when looked at it from the right approach it is amazing to me how everyone who talks about why it’s a success is completely missing the point (including myself and my previous entries about it). Hopefully I can get my first bit of insight in later today or tomorrow so then I can come back a couple months from now and realize I was still wrong about Myspace.

Originally posted on April 12, 2006 @ 4:11 pm

Yesterday when I wrote about creating 37signals apps for free, I knew I should’ve went with some generic company instead, but I thought a specific example would help everyone reading. However, if you mention 37signals and you don’t praise them to the high heavens there is a good chance a large number of people will misinterpret what you are trying to say and put their own spin on it and attack you back, even though you weren’t attacking them in the first place.

I use Basecamp every once in a while, but I haven’t dived into their other offerings because for now I don’t have a need. I love that the little company made it big. Great inspiration can be found in their story and I think I have said all of this fluff before anyways. In any case I thought I would highlight some of the great comments left yesterday to show how far and wide people can take a discussion. Remember it’s best to read most of these in the comments since some of the logic might be taken out of context.

No, I don’t think 37s would be even remotely worried about a free competitor to any of their products — it just doesn’t make sense.

Why wouldn’t any company worry about a free competitor?

Also, companies turn deaf to using something like Basecamp, no matter how good it is, due to privacy concerns and the fact that their data is hosted on a service based site and not on their own i.e., Corporation paranoia.

Which was one of my points.

Yeah, right. Why just can Sony, Createive and others just get togather and produce an iPod killer over a weekend – that thing is so simple.

I still don’t get, why are you obsessed with 37S…
Why be copycats when you can go and create something different and still great. Or can you?

Because the iPod is iTunes, Apple and status icon.

Wow, lots of ignorance on display here today. No, you can’t whip up Basecamp in a weekend. Go ahead, try. You’re in for a much needed reality check.

Ummm, okay…

Basecamp is great because the team that built it is truly talented. Truly talented people will rarely settle for just copying someone else’s work and releasing it as their own, which is why most copies suck compared to their originals. But, if you can find a talented team that is willing to settle for copying someone else’s work instead of coming up with something of their own… well, then that team is probably not as talented as you think.

An obvious point.

Then when you get to comment #33 you finally find someone who understands where I coming from…sort of..

When I read the post by Scrivs, I have to say I agreed. I like 37s and their products, and I respect what they are trying to do. I can understand why 37s have such an amazing following. However, I understand that 37s have put themselves in a pretty vulnerable position. What they have created is a suite of products which, to be fair, are pretty simple and straightforward. Replicating them now could be done pretty quickly and easily. Not that anyone would want to simply replicate what they have done, but it is possible. And I think what Scrivs is saying is that, in order to hold their position, 37s are going to have to work.

I was waiting for something like this…

Does your desire to put them out of business have anything to do with the fact that 9rules has been a complete and utter failure?

I can’t remember me ever saying or even thinking I want to put 37signals out of business because you know the best way to put them out of business is to start a content network that has nothing to do with what they are doing…

You couldn’t just copy a product, slap another name on it, put them out of business, and expect them to not sue you. Also, , its not just the products, guys. These guys have a huge influence on every piece of development going right now.

Wasn’t sure how to respond to that one.

Overall though if you could filter through the noise, it was a great discussion and I think both sides brought a great number of valuable points which hopefully I can summarize tomorrow. For now I just wanted to show you that if you don’t have a thick skin, don’t say anything about a company as great as 37signals. And yes I do think they are great.

Originally posted on April 6, 2006 @ 9:09 pm

Friday I leave for Austin to attend SXSW. I will be talking to a lot of people because people like to ask the naked guy questions and I find that it’s better to answer those questions than ignore them. In any case for those of you who can’t go or are too scared to ask your web celebs certain questions I figure you can just tell me and I will ask them.

Here is a list of questions I have for people.

• Bowman: Okay man, I know you used to be the superstar designer and you probably still have skills, but do you find having hot women swarm all over you and your constant dating habits has taken away from your design skills? You don’t blog anymore so I am just trying to keep up with these kind of things. Oh and are you gonna man up and drink with me again?
• Zeldman: Admit it, marriage life blows compared to those web design NY orgies, right?
• Fried: A while ago you had a girl in Chicago that left. I can’t remember how long ago that was, but it was some time ago. You still sweating that chick or does your millionaire status allow you more freedom to pick and choose who you want?
• Molly: Who is the hottest person in the web game now besides me? Okay you can say me if that’s your only answer.
• Calacanis: Do you wish you were as tall as me or as poor as me? Sorry man, you can only pick one.
• Random 9rules Members: Man you look nothing like your forum avatar, what up with that?
• Austin Police: Officer, did you know I run the 9rules Network and how many people I could get to blog about you right now if you don’t remove these cuffs?
• Random girl at bar: You know what my technorati rank is baby? Do you?

All very, very lame, but for some reason those are the questions that make people think. So what do you need me to ask and to who? Really I have no shame so don’t worry.

Originally posted on March 9, 2006 @ 11:11 am

Whitespace is a conversational site. It’s a site where you get to see the business side of Scrivs so to speak. Things might get heated every once in a while, but it will always be a bit timid. Nothing wrong with that, but that’s not really the type of person I am.

I’m a nice guy. I’m an asshole. I’m quiet and a loudmouth. I am a lot of things and last week all of them came out offline. My partners kind of imposed a vacation on me to get away from things and it has helped tremendously. There were a lot of things that happened last week and a lot of words were said, lies spread and none of them by me for once.

A couple weeks ago I asked the question of what is too serious and I did so because I could feel myself falling into this trap of thinking that I had to act a certain way to keep the company safe. No matter what happens with 9rules, good or bad, it always seems that people say Scrivs did this or that and never 9rules. It makes sense because 9rules has been with me since its inception and it is something that will probably never change. Overall I think all of us (Colin and Mike) have taken ourselves too seriously and forgotten what has gotten us here.

We are a fun group and with the addition of Tyme things have only gotten a bit more fun and a tad bit raunchier since now those sex jokes can actually be applied to a woman (damn, don’t know how that is going to sound). In any case, I didn’t want a personal site so to speak, but I also didn’t want to turn Whitespace into my playground and stop the conversations that we have here on an almost daily basis. So what did I do? I created the Oreo CEO.

Here is where offline Scrivs meets online Scrivs as I am tired of the two being separate. This is where the fun begins and the trouble….errr, I guess begins again.

No comments. No color, but all color. (Ever had one of those entries you just didn’t know how to end? Yeah, I’m stuck)

Originally posted on February 22, 2006 @ 5:10 pm