Features

A Clue - to the state of the Internet? Dana reflects ...

"My career here at a-clue.com has gone through two distinct stages, so far." Pioneering Internet observer, Blankenhorn, explains why he gave up full time journalism, and became a consultant.

The first stage was the boom. The newsletter was a marketing vehicle. People saw what I was writing about Internet Commerce, saw how I was writing it, and called me to do it for them.

By the year 2000 I had 14 different columns going, in addition to this one - daily columns, weekly columns, monthly columns, and one due to run once every two months. In addition to covering (and laughing about) e-commerce, I was writing about politics, publishing, business-to-business, the ISP business - all sorts of interesting stuff. I had a six-figure income.

Best of all I didn't have to take it seriously. I had written here from the first that this was a Bubble, that it was bound to burst. I knew my success was temporary. I was the grand de-bunker, the Internet Bubble's jester. I called millionaires and billionaires "clueless." And they paid me for it.

For me the end of Stage One came in San Francisco, at a show called Ad:tech, in the spring of 2000. It was a great time. I was staying, free, at a fancy hotel, and I had just come from a free lunch on a free launch in San Francisco Bay. I was in a bus with a bunch of yuppies. One started complaining about the recent turn in the market, how cruel it was that venture capitalists were suddenly demanding a bigger percentage of his deals, and how some of his friends weren't even being seen at all. "It isn't fair!" he moaned.

I laughed. I laughed and laughed. Since when do vulture capitalists have to be fair, I said. Since when is the market fair, I said. The market doesn't exist for your clueless benefit. When bubbles pop, they pop. Get over it. And the more he wallowed, the more I laughed. I'd been predicting this, I knew this was coming, it was as hilarious as I had believed it would be. I laughed and laughed. For a few minutes, I was Mephistopheles collecting Faust's soul.

But time passed. Time does. And while I had predicted this fall from grace, I was not immune to it. Columns began cancelling. New work came in a trickle, then it stopped flowing at all. By 2002 I was down to one pitiful gig, then that died.

The period from 2000 to now is the Second Stage, the bust.

"Once I had a Web site, made it run.

Made it race against time.

Once I had a Web site, now it's done.

Buddy can you spare a dime?"

The upshot of the song is that "Buddy" won't spare a dime. Buddy has decided that . you are a bum.

"Say don't you remember, they called me Al.

It was Al all the time.

Say don't you remember ... I'm your pal!?

Buddy, can you spare a dime?"

Buddy walks on.

"He walks on, doesn't look back

He pretends he can't hear her

Starts to whistle as he crosses the street

Seems embarrassed to be there"

It's just another day for you and me in paradise. The cruelty of the period was predictable but it was hard just the same.

I was lucky. My wife had an "essential" job, programming systems for a company in a good business. She was even a "winner" from September 11. Her "prize" of a weekend in Martha's Vineyard on September 13 was replaced, thanks to the attack, by a week-long luxury cruise of the Caribbean. For two! The bust was good for my marriage, and good for my family. I was there for my kids as they entered their teen years, when they really needed me. And I found being needed was a wonderful, fulfilling thing indeed. It was wisdom my lovely wife had all along, and it was good. My marriage grew stronger. I was happy.

But the money ran out, and out and out, and we had to downsize. The kids started going to public schools. We stopped going out to eat. We put off work on our house as long as possible, then borrowed the money rather than paying cash. We didn't vacation any more. We kept our cars running past their expiration dates. I dropped my second phone line, then the cell phone.

I'm not looking for sympathy here. As I say, I was lucky. But everything I tried to do in order to get things going again failed for me. I tried working for some publishers free. They started demanding rewrites, or cancelled my pieces altogether. I tried writing a book. It was a great book () but without marketing behind it any book will fail.

I was out of options, going through the motions, down to my last swing of the bat. It was the Supercomm in Atlanta last spring, the last Supercomm in Atlanta. (It moves to Chicago next year.) And there, in the press room, I met a man who would change my life, literally.

His name was Barry Cohen. He listened to me, sympathetically. We hit it off. We walked the show floor together. He gave me his card. He suggested I call.

I did more than that. I was lucky enough to be invited to a dinner honoring a great friend of mine in New York, at the famous Four Seasons restaurant . It was just a few miles from Barry's office.

So we both flew up, Jenni and I. We figured to make a weekend of it, our first real vacation since that cruise, all writable-offable. Progressive Strategies has a prestige address, just a block from Union Square. But it's really a bare bones outfit. Most of its workforce is remote. They were looking for brainpower. Both Barry and his partner, Dan Spiner, thought I could be of use. Suddenly I was no mere reporter. I was a "Business Analyst."

I changed my sig file, I started writing blog items for Barry. For a long, long time nothing happened. Then came a little writing, then a project. The work was fun. The clients seemed happy. The amount of work I had to do began to grow. (Right now it seems unmanageable.) And then, last week, after I flew up again for the corporate Christmas party, the boss gave me the final proof of a turn in the market.

It was a check. I won't say how much it was for. But it was the first check I had seen in over six months. There was the promise of more. There was the hope that my latest "big idea," "The World Of Always-On," might not just become a second book, but a living, breathing reality. I am finally being heard by people in a position to do something about what I say, who are writing checks big enough that they are guaranteed to listen.

And so we enter Stage Three. I cannot tell you where it leads. I cannot tell you where it will take this newsletter. I cannot guarantee this newsletter will even follow it. But finally, finally, I feel, I'm on my way.

"Oh Lawd,

I'm on my way.

I'm on my way to a Heav'nly Lan'-

Oh Lawd. It's a long, long way, but

You'll be there to take my han'."

I know that after singing this Porgy disappeared, his story told. I know that after writing this Gershwin died. Neither success nor life is guaranteed for any of us. But moving forward feels so good.

"It's enough to be on your way.

It's enough to cover ground

It's enough to be moving on."

Merry Christmas, friend.