The Correct Way To Build A Niche Website

[I have the joy of spending the day hanging out with ‘the future’ at an art museum. Because of that this will be the days only post. I’m sure you have something more important to do than read what I write anyway. The following post was written by me last night but hasn’t been edited. It’s raw chartreuse. devour.]

 

 

I was stupid until I turned 27. When I turned 27 I picked up a copy of Alvin Toffler’s “The Third Wave” at a garage sale. It was a big thick book (over 1000 pages) and I thought it would look impressive to chicks who came to my new bachlor pad.

Then I read it.

In case you haven’t read it (it was 15 years old when I did) it’s basicly a unified theory to how the world works. It showed how the way we (the world) makes money effects the social and moral choices of the world. I know it said a lot of other stuff to but that’s what stuck with me. The Big Picture.

After reading that book I became a disiciple. I read everything Toffler wrote. I told everybody to read him. I pushed the Toffler religion on everyone from my parents to my auto mechanic. I gave his books as gifts to musicians. I was a true believer and a pain in the ass.

I have calmed down a bit. But his books still influence the way I think and how I do things. It made me look at the possible long term effects of things and how they will infuence other parts of our lives.

People like to say that the internet has changed things dramaticlly and it has. But I think if you want to understand when the shift really happened you have to go back a little farther. Back to the rise of cable tv.

Cable was the real first mass communication tool which gave people choice. You could watch what you wanted, when you wanted. News 24/7, no problem. Movies 24/7, no problem. Game shows at 3am. You can do that. You actually had a choice.

Now how can you give people a choice in something as ubiquitous as television and not give people a choice in who they sleep with? If the Christian Right wants to take the choice of Gays away they are going to have to take away a lot of other stuff, too. But that’s just it. You can’t go back. You can hate abortion but you can’t stop it. The world doesn’t work backwards. You can never close the box.

In San Francisco a bunch of black kids are literally making tens thousands of dollars selling the musical style of local dead ghetto rapper. The guy never had a hit record. I’m in the business and I had never heard of the guy. But his fans created a ‘religion’ based on his music. They have there own words (language) and now the white kids in the suburbs of the Bay area are picking up on it. When it fades some people involved will walk away millionaires. And the average American will have never heard of it. And the majors in the music business won’t make a dime.

Andy Hagans said yesterday that it was obvious I had read the Long Tail. I hope you have,too. I also hope you are reading the bald guy and Tom Peters. They are the thought kings of our tribe. But if you really want to be smart. If you really want to get it. Pick up a magazine or examine a website of a group completely unrelated to your interests.

Want to understand why Black girls always have such far out hairstyles? Pick up a Sister2Sister magazine and see how that demographic thinks and what’s important to them. Learn the language.

What about independent movie makers. Lawyers. HR people. The bum on the street. They all have their own language, customs and religions which those on the outside know nothing about. But they are also all affected by the big changes which sweep over everything. Like the internet.

You can’t create a site about what’s going on in the plastic industry unless you learn how they think. You gotta pick up some trade papers. Talk to some people inside. So that when you do create you will be authentic and loved. So that you get it. You can’t be fucking pedestrian and set up a site and hope they will come. They may visit but they won’t come back. And if they don’t come back you have lost.

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