The Firehouse

So eventually it failed. This screen cap of Mobuzz’s Technorati tag search says it all:

What is more interesting is the top spanish bloggers are reacting with, in some cases, great violence and insults against critics. They seem to believe that Spain is a land of non-believers, who simply are after bringing down the slightest show of entrepreneurship. While there is some truth to this, the general criticism against Mobuzz has been:

• Clear over-spending on unnecessary things, such as plush offices in the most expensive and posh area of Madrid, with swimming pool included. Anil, the founder, was also traveling around to plenty of events, which costs a LOT of money, and brings only self-patting in the back with other attendees who tend to be always the same ones.
• No sign of what they planned to do to make their company survive, in terms of cutting costs. Some suggested increasing sales & revenues (duh!), but in the short term, the only guaranteed measure you can take is cut costs – jobs, office space, show schedules, fixed costs such as bandwidth, etc.
• Mobuzz asked for donations as if it was an NGO, yet they denied it was all a move to bring in ‘viral’ traffic. This was then reversed by Enrique Dans, who said that they did look for the viral effect.
• Several of their investors and backers proclaimed the Mobuzz model to be viable, and called every critic an ignorant troll – it seems 15 days later they are even closing comments on their blogs to avoid facing shame.

It’s not that people in Spain are after killing every idea – but when an idea is defended above and beyond all reason, even insulting those who are critic, the people see through the bullshit, and call on it. You failed, just like anyone else can fail – it’s time to admit it and look at what you did wrong, rather than blame others.

There are plenty of articles abound, from those who are critic and dismount Chris Anderson’s Long Tail theory, and even those who still believe there is something there. Hard economic facts have basically proven the theory wrong. The analysis so far doesn’t address the ‘why’, only the blinding truth of the real numbers – in my view, the problem is a universal lack of time.

Essentially, even though in the ‘Tail’ there may live hundreds of thousands or even millions of undiscovered songs (to take a practical example), it’s literally impossible that a human could listen to them all and make purchases based on the discoveries. Even if you categorize music in ‘country’ or ‘rock & roll’ groups, there is still a vast selection that you could never hope to listen to in its entirety. Another practical example: you would need seven solid days of non-stop listening to hear through an 8GB iPod’s memory (2000 songs), so how can you hope to listen through a catalog as huge as any of the online music stores? What happens is most people stay with the ‘most popular’, or ‘new releases’ categories, which are usually influenced by the market in order to push known artists or commercial hits to the top. It’s very unlikely that some kid from some unknown town in Idaho would make it to the ‘new releases’ section of iTunes.

Finally, I recommend reading the Long Tail with Tom Slee’s critical reader’s companion.

Still running on June’s 3.0 release – and boy, am I glad I didn’t upgrade to 4.0, mainly due to lack of time. In hindsight, it seems that there are so many problems with Parallels 4.0 that I’m going to try VMWare Fusion instead. The world looks slowly more perpendicular…

It seems weird, and I really don’t want to put everyone in the same bag, as I’ve had the pleasure to work with some really excellent and cool people from Germany, so I’m really curious as to why ALL (seriously, it really is all of them!) trolls who simply post stupid, senseless and made-to-piss-off comments on my posts come from there. There has also been some trouble in other places with regard to commenters or even admins that are from Germany. What is it with these people? Move to Spain, eat some paella and drink some sangria, I think you really need it! Feel free to troll this post too, I’ll be happy to delete your comments after having a good laugh.

It’s curious that over the last few weeks, and possibly due to the crisis mass-hysteria, the few LinkedIn groups I am a member of have turned into job posting boards, mainly for people looking for work, with headlines such as:

Are you looking for an experienced Content , Business Development or Product Manager ? Look no further.

What this is doing as a thread topic in a wireless-related discussion group escapes me, but I see it more and more in the daily email digest. There isn’t anything wrong with this per se, other than swaying the forums/groups off-topic.

It seems that they are already legally bankrup, but the Madrid-based Mobuzz has sent out a cry for help, in the form of a request for people’s donations. They need to raise 120.000€ to keep going, and seem to have already raised 20.000.

To be forthcoming, I’m not going to donate. Being a volunteer firefighter in a severely understaffed and underfunded municipal department, where the council tells us they cannot afford 12.000€ for a set of four air packs (SCBA) as a result of the crisis, makes me put Mobuzz’s call for help under a different light. The SCBA sets (pictured below) would allow us to safely enter burning structures and actually save lifes. We find that at times, we cannot intervene, and have to wait until nearby departments respond, which can take 20-30 minutes. So far we haven’t had to lament fatalities due to this shortcoming, in part due to luck, and in part due to our crews taking (otherwise unnecessary) risks.

We are offering an infinitely higher ROI with a 10th of what Mobuzz needs to survive. There have been plenty of comments, some in favor, most against, in the blogs of Martin Varsavsky, Enrique Dans, and even TechCrunch. Essentially, many people would rather give to a charitable cause, than to keeping the lifestyle, company perks, and jobs of an internet startup.

I feel Mobuzz’s pain, almost every startup is in a very similar situation, facing deep cost cuts and layoffs to try to survive, or facing certain death already. Before considering a donation, I would make these questions:

• My donation will go towards keeping your site alive, your jobs, but what are you going to do about your style? Are you going to lay people off, run on a shoestring budget, cut the number of shows, move to smaller and cheaper offices, sell your expensive editing equipment and go back to handheld cameras, which for web video work just as well? Basically, I need to know your plan on how you intend to make my donation count.
• What happens after and if you raise the money? Are we just prolonging your agony? When the 120.000 run out, and you face the same situation again a few weeks or months down the line, do we need to donate again?
• If you do make it and raise new funding, or eventually turn a profit, will you publicly commit to returning the donations, or even better, donating the 120.000€ to a charitable cause?

One final doubt – some sources quote 2 million visits per month, yet both Alexa and Compete seem to disagree – this is a chart comparing it to elmundo.es, one of the most read online newspapers in Spain, and a source of some of the buzz:

Where’s the traffic?