With over 800 facebook friends and roughly 2,000 twitter followers I’d like to think that I’m pretty knowledgeable about the happenings in the social media world.  I regularly read popular blogs such as TechCrunch, Engadget, Gizmodo, etc and do my best to stay up to date on the latest news in the tech industry.

I’m not blaming this issue on anyone in particular or trying to call anyone out, I’m simply curious as to why this has turned into such a large void of representation.  If I were in search of black people in the sports and entertainment industry online there would be no such shortage as the web is super saturated with these personalities.  I keep seeing lists of the top/key individuals in the industry, yet I never rarely see someone who looks like me.

It would be nice to not always be the only brown skinned person in the room when I attend tech events.  It would be nice to not be the only black guy in the office.  Can someone please tell me what gives?

This got me thinking about why things are the way they are and I couldn’t help but think of the way businesses are run these days.  At some point the fundamentals of business were thrown out the window and wild speculation and guessing took over.  I remember back to the dot com boom when companies were boasting stock prices above $300 per share, the same companies that either now no longer exist or trade for pennies on the dollar.  While even the most basic investor should have questioned the valuation and market capitalization numbers being put forth at the time, everyone allowed greed to dictate their moves.  Then of course the bottom fell out of everything and people lost a ton of money.  But shouldn’t there be something in the system that prevents this from happening in the first place?

Fast forward to today and I exactly why we are in our current recession.  Once again companies were allowed to do whatever they wanted and all the warning signs of collapse were completely ignored.  Everyone  put their hand in the pot to get a share of the money and quite a few made off with billions of dollars.  Of course this means that for every person who made money, another 1000 lost everything they had.

I’m currently in the process of launching my own company, a parking reservations service called QuickPark.  When I first sat down and came up with the concept a few years ago one of the first things I did in my initial due diligence was come up with a revenue plan.  Now while its easy to sit down with Excel and put together a spreadsheet of numbers that get you excited about the future, it’s a crucial step for anyone serious about launching a new business.  As the title of this post points out businesses make money.  Anything else is no different than an 8th grade science project.  This needs to be the #1 rule taught in every business class  around the world.

Far too often I see my fellow entrepreneurs come up with great ideas that have no supporting revenue model.  Again I say if you don’t have some plan of generating money, then it doesn’t matter how clever of an idea you have come up with it is not a business.  Right now the whole world is infatuated with Twitter.  As recently as this past September Twitter was valued at $1 billion.  Now don’t get me wrong I completely love the site and all that it has to offer but there’s no way any company should be valued at nearly $1 billion when they have never generated a dime. You cannot get through a hour of TV without seeing some reference to Twitter whether it be in a Sprint commercial or the local news station advertising their page.  Twittermania is in full effect and yet they have failed to capitalize on their success.  There has been talk about premium services for business and possible inclusion of ads on the site.  I’ve heard these rumblings for years and still nothing has been implemented.

The problem with operating a business in this manner is that you are relying on your popularity to fuel your existence.  While Twitter is very well funded, receiving over $55 million to date, at some point your popularity wanes and people move on to the next big thing.  Just ask Friendster if you don’t believe me.  While Twitter may very well pull through and eventually become a profitable company, it is not a sound strategy for starting and running a business.  The only way to make sure that companies can withstand the frailties of our economic system is making sure they are built on a solid foundation.  This means operating with morality, focusing on gradual and long term growth and of course generating revenue along the way.  At least that’s my two cents.

I remember back to my early college days in the mid 90′s when the web was still in its infancy.  The first web browser I ever used was NCSA Mosaic which at the time I thought was pretty cool.  Then came the days of Netscape and ultimately I moved to Internet Explorer full time.  Around this same time I distinctly remember the big hype that was Windows 95 as it was a huge departure from the Windows 3.x world I had come to learn.

Through the late 90′s Microsoft reigned supreme at almost all things computing related, then one day everything magically changed.  First companies like Yahoo and Alta Vista came around with search engines as a way to find information on the Internet and Microsoft was magically missing from this market.  We all know what happened next when Google came in and basically kicked everyone in the face and became a household name.

On the OS side of the house Microsoft still had a very tight reign over the market as Apple struggled to define who they were.  Of course that was until they invented the iPod and iTunes and the rest is pretty much history.  Once again for years, Microsoft remained miraculously quiet until they finally had to act.  This brought us the well-known Zune.  While the device was actually superior to the iPod in many respects, it never has gotten a firm foothold in a market dominated by Apple.

In a matter of just a few years, it seems that Microsoft has gone from being a market leader to constantly playing catchup in their leading business segments.  The only two products that have remained consistently strong all this time are Microsoft Office and Microsoft Exchange, which are pretty much defacto standards in their respective categories.

So what happened to the company that used to rule the world?  More importantly how do you fix it?  Any thoughts you have are greatly appreciated.  I have lots of thoughts and suggestions, but I’ll save that for another blog post.

The only device I could see selling reasonably well would be the XBox.  Even then I seriously doubt XBox sales alone will be enough to support a full retail operation.  There’s always the Zune, but no one wants one.  Other than that they have computer peripherals and software.  You have to sell a ton of keyboards and mice to pay rent at any decent retail location.

The biggest problem with this retail strategy is that there are currently too many other options of places to buy Microsoft products.  One of the main things that made Apple stores so convenient was in the beginning it was the only place to buy an iPod other than the Apple web store.  By severly limiting the distribution chain, Apple was able to drive people into their stores.  While there are tons of places to buy Apple products now, the initial experience is what got people hooked and makes them keep coming back.

Speaking of the experience, that is another thing that no one has been able to replicate and I definitely don’t see Microsoft being able to pull off.  Apple fans are total fanatics about their products and in most cases I believe rightfully so.  The Apple experience is carried over into everything they do from using OS X to getting support at one of their Genius bars.

Microsoft has a long history of trying to duplicate Apple’s success and I’m afraid this will be yet another in a line of failed attempts.  Maybe someone in Redmond should look into coming up with some original ideas that actually make sense for their business model.