My Home     About Me

As far away as the Pitcher and Piano in London's Bishopgate financial district, they're lined up three deep at the bar tossing back Red Bull and Vodkas, giddy with Google-Mania. Since everyone else tonight and through the weekend will be writing almost exclusively about their mind-googling earnings, I'll take you for a stroll down memory lane instead, and give you a glimpse of the future yet to come.

A number of years ago, my friend Michael Kron and his buddy Earl Asimov founded one of the internet's very first search engines - Mama.com. These guys were true pioneers in the field. This was long before we had cool things like "Ad-Words". Back in the day, search engines were a wonderful tool for navigating the new digital frontier, in fact they were the closest thing to a road map this new information super highway had to offer. It was a cool tool, but aside from a few banner impressions, the search engine of old was no great revenue generator. Most S.E.'s went under for that very reason. Once the novelty wore off and the life savings were depleted, those early search engines faded like so many heads at Sal's on Capitol Hill.

There were a few that not only survived but prospered, or at least the brains behind them did. Such is the tale of my dear friend Michael. He and Earl made off with $40 million for their efforts and at the time probably considered themselves to be two of the smartest chaps ever to boot up a PC.

Remember when we called them PC's? Now they're digital entertainment platforms, media centers and a host of other names but rarely, just a lowly PC. Pardon my nostalgic digression but does anyone else ever miss that black screen and blinking cursor? Not just anybody could operate one of those beauties. No sir, you needed to learn an entire language just to get it to do simple math. And the modem? Remember the modem? The screech, the squall, music to our ears as we were magically transported through that dark screen into universities, libraries, and even a few phone companies (he he), wonderful fascinating places, places few had ever traveled to before, at least in this manner. We were Lewis and Clark dipping our toes in a pool of ones and zeros that would soon become a mighty river of knowledge that anyone with the ability to point and click could easily navigate. Sort of took all the fun out of it when your kids starting teaching you stuff didn't it?

O.K., back to the tale of Michael, Earl and Mama. Mama was you know, the "mother of all search engines". She wasn't real pretty, she didn't have a higher education, but she knew how to bring home the goods and serve 'em up in a browser. Today, we are of course much wiser to the ways of the search. We have figured out how to turn an electronic telephone book into the most powerful advertising medium ever to hit Madison Avenue or Wall Street.

While Michael and Earl will certainly go down in the history books, I can't help but wonder what it feels like to be in their shoes tonight. Again, $40 million was indeed then a tidy sum and still is for most, but no one in their right mind could have ever imagined they we're parting with a company that would end up with competitors capable of earning over $1.5 billion in a single quarter. Had they any remote idea of there even being a possibility that the stakes could get this high, do you think they would have stuck around?

I think so, but then hindsight is always a perfect science isn't it? Unfortunately, it's the one perfect science that will never make anyone wealthy. Foresight is the answer of course, but not just the kind of foresight that allows you to look up ahead. In today's fast paced, hi-tech environment, you need foresight that actually allows you to see beyond the horizon, and over the rainbow. Even those rainbows that have a pot-o'-gold worth $40 million.

The internet re-invents itself almost daily. In 1899, the director of the U.S. Patent Office suggested that the Patent Office should close, claiming "everything that can be invented has already been invented". Obviously he had never downloaded "This Week in Tech" on his iPod over his broadband wireless connection via Podcast Alley, or he would have known better, wouldn't he?

That's what I really want to talk about, the Podcast. America and the world is in love with the Pod. If you live in the Village or the S.F. hills and don't have your own podcast, you're practically an outcast, a social pirahia. If you're wondering where that last term originated, just google it. But for all it's awe and wonder, the Podcast has yet to find it's revenue stream.

The best of the best are burning the midnight oil to do for the Podcast what men like Michael and Earl did for the search engine so long ago. Someone out there with an ability to peer over the horizon, will most certainly find it. The day is coming when the Pod will mean Profits. Profits that will make a billion a quarter look like last night's bath water.

I don't know who he or she is. But with the same fervor that America invested in finding Waldo, you can believe I'm looking for them in every crowded cyber-cafe I visit. I know they're out there. Not the ones who have already tried and failed, or the ones just squeaking by, I mean the ONE.

Apple should have been the hands down favorite, but perhaps there's too much bare-foot culture left over, or not enough. When they do appear it will begin with a ripple. If you're not careful you'll miss it. Just as Google re-invented the search engine with its Spartan approach, the Podcast is about to be re-invented and along with it, create a whole new generation of the obnoxiously wealthy.

It won't be whoever does it first. It won't necessarily be who does it best. It will be, who does it different. Wall Street analysts were scratching their head over those new fangled search engines less than a decade ago wondering how they could ever turn a buck.

Whoever you are, wherever you are, I just want you to know that you're in my dreams and in my prayers. And when I find you, I promise to do my very best, not to be too obnoxious.

Trade Safe
from the desk of CT

options   oil   technicals   stock   investor   charts   Short selling opportunities   Technical chart patterns   support/resistance levels   ETFs (exchange traded funds)   Deron Wagner   Basic Materials sector   IRS denies trader tax status   trader tax status   mark to market accounting   Patience in the markets   Dow Monthly Performance   Dow Performance since 1900   Amateur Investors   Nasdaq Composite chart pattern