• by Bill McCloskey , May 22, 2001

I've been listening to a lot of Jazz lately, particularly the small quartets and combos from the 1950's and 60's: Miles Davis, Theloneous Monk, John Coltrane. These groups were formed during the massive economic shift of the post war years. Everything was changing. Prior to this time Jazz meant Big Bands. Big expensive bands. After the war, though, there just wasn't enough the money around to pay for these big bands anymore. Clubs got smaller and an entire new genre of entertainment and art was developed in response to the changing times.

I think there is a comparison to what is going on right now on the Web. The mantra of the last few years has been GBF. Get Big Fast. As companies shed staff the new mantra should be GSF: get small as quickly and as fast as you can.

Let me clue you in on a little secret: The next phase of the Web is not for the faint of heart. Creativity, speed, point-of-view, and passion are the new watchwords. The motto "Small is Beautiful," should be on everyone's lips.

Speed and size have always been diametrically opposed concepts. Not so long ago, companies understood this. Back in the early 90's companies were getting rid of layers of middle management and management guru's like Tom Peters were writing books about surviving on "Chaos" and singing the praises of small compact teams developing breakthrough products and services. What happened? When did the notion that combining ingredients like inexperienced management teams, rapid growth, and Internet speed suddenly make sense?

This is no more evident than in the companies and publishers whose information and opinions we seek each week in the field of online marketing and advertising. Now, I go to a number of sources to stay on top of my field: Iconocast, Clickz. I-advertising.com, ChannelSeven.com, and of course our dear old MediaPost. But interestingly, the place I go to first every morning is F**kedcompany, run by basically one guy. And pretty profitably too if some of the latest figures about the sign up rate for his paid premium service are true: about $800k a year. Now a figure like that is not going to keep a company like Yahoo! in business but will make one person, or even a small team of people, pretty well off.

Quite frankly a site like F**kedcompany could only be successful as a Jazz quartet, not a Big Band. What makes it work? Well its not the gossip and rumors entirely. Other sites have tried gossip and rumors in an attempt to replicate what "Pud" (the F**kedcompany founder and chief bottlewasher) has done, but none have succeeded. Even the granddaddy of this kind "gossip" journalism, Michael Tchong, has been seemingly trounced by success of this one-man venture.

No, I think the success lies in the improvisational nature of the site (like a good Jazz solo). Pud seems to just think of things that might make money and tries them, all the while keeping his sense of humor, self-deprecation, vulgarity, and in-your-face wit.

A case in point: I'm about to try my first media buy ever. I decided to do it five minutes ago and the campaign flight will probably happen in about an hour. I just went to Pud's site and he has a new service he launched today that makes it very easy for me to do this. You choose the size banner you want to run (468x60 for a $5 CPM or 120x60 for a $2 CPM), choose the amount of impressions (minimum 50,000), and when you want the buy to start running (like today). Then you upload the creative and that's it. For $100 dollars charged on my credit card, Emerging Interest is going to have its first ad running: Everything is automated. No sales people. No hassle. Easy.

Right now the Emerging Interest artists are creating some quick creative and I'm going to use the buy to see if I can get more people to sign up for my newsletter. Next week I'll report on how well it did.

Now, let's look at Yahoo! I go to their site to advertise and there is a fairly complicated process. I need to fill out a form and then someone will have to get back to me at some later date to discuss opportunities. Can you imagine the folks at Yahoo! waking up one morning and deciding to write a little program that made it possible to place a 50,000 impression buy on their site for $100 in less than 3 minutes? Of course not! There would be endless meetings, QA sessions, and focus groups. That's what big companies do.

But that is exactly the kind of thinking that might be death on the Web. And Pud's kind of one-man-show, give it a try type of thing might be what's necessary for success: Just like in Jazz.

Until next week, keep jamming.

- Bill McCloskey is Founder and CEO of Emerging Interest, an organization dedicated to educating the Internet advertising and marketing industry about rich media and other emerging technologies. He may be reached at bill@emerginginterest.com.