the Onda

Here's a news-inspired thought about one of my favorite concepts from the social sciences-- path dependence:

A decade ago when smart top-tier venture guys were funding the likes of Yahoo and Excite we all witnessed what I believe to have been the beginning of path dependence towards ad-backed software over the web effect that ends with Microsoft making a feeble attempt to come to the party.

When the web was new and it came time for the VCs to find the adult supervision for the kids in the startups, they faced two choices:

1. since the web was technology, they could have recruited technology executives to run companies that were fundamentally software makers at their core
2. since the web was media, they could have recruited media executives to run the drive to eyeballs

I believe that the first major stake in the ground was Sequoia's when they put Tim Koogle (a magazine guy) in charge of Yahoo. KP quickly followed by putting George Bell (a documentary film maker) in charge of Excite. The rest is history.

I'm not arguing here that the web and webapps should not be seen as something that can be used to build huge advertising businesses (interestingly enough, Google, who picked a geek for its adult supervision proved that) but that it's really sort of boring that now advertising is all that people seem think of when they think of web businesses. The metaphors, analogies, and models are all lifted from more traditional media businesses. Even the executives have been recruited from the media companies, sometimes with mixed success.

I guess I was sort of waiting for someone big to stand up and say: "wait a minute here, we're gonna play on the web and our business is about XXX" where XXX could be subscriptions, novel e-commerce schemes, or just about anything beside advertising. And of all the big companies to be able to do this, I guess I would have thought that Microsoft would have both the confidence and resources to do so. Where is it's iTunes Music Store? (Though that is media, it's not advertising backed media).

I'm sure they'll do a fine Microsoft-style job on this whole ad-sponsored search and online tools thing. I just want to see something a little less me-too and a little more encouraging for those of us who don't think that the future all belongs to adwords.

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