I\’ve been wanting to meet Jason Calacanis face-to-face for some time. For those that don\’t know, Jason is the co-creator of Weblogs, Inc., which was sold to AOL for $25 million.
I\’m at Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas where Jason Calacanis delivered the keynote address this morning.
I really didn\’t know anything about Jason as a person, so I was looking forward to an insightful talk with fresh ideas.
Wow, was I in for a shock.
Now before I get started, I want to say this.
I am looking forward to meeting Jason and I expect him to be a nice guy.
I also suspect that the comments he made were made specifically to get a rise out of people.
He upset everyone in the search engine marketing world a couple months back when he said \”SEO is bull****\” to an audience that was left shellshocked by his abusive approach.
So what did Jason say in this morning\’s keynote that will undoubtedly result in dozens of blog entries, thereby giving Jason more press?
Essentially, he delivered an elitist, arrogant condescending rant that slapped at least 50% of the audience directly in the face.
Jason took an extremely purist approach to \”how the web should look\”, meaning that he is the judge and jury of the type of content that is acceptable.
I am tired of spam sites, but the definition of what is spam has black, white and grey areas.
Now I have no problems with wanting to clean out malware links and spam sites that exist just to steal content from others for the purpose of generating AdSense revenue.
But many affiliates create sites for the purpose of displaying affiliate links.
In Calacanis\’ mind, this is spam.
He even labeled Chris Knights\’ ezinearticles.com as a spam site. This is the world\’s largest directory of original articles whose authors and articles are put through a rigid process for acceptance.
It could be that some of the sites that syndicate articles from ezinearticles.com are spam sites, but the main site referenced is certainly NOT spam!
Jason went on to insult a large segment of the room when he told them how unimpressed he was with people that were making just six figures/month. He referenced a site where one publisher displayed a very large check and was highly critical. He said that we all need to be thinking bigger and essentially inferred that those seeking to make six figures are somehow less than worthy.
I couldn\’t believe what I was hearing. Maybe I misunderstood?
Sorry to say that wasn\’t the case.
For thousands of people, six figures per month would afford them the freedom and hope they only dream of! It would be life-changing, as it should be.
Are these people somehow less worthy because they aren\’t seeking to sell their business for $25 million?
Apparantly, this is what Jason Calacanis would have you believe.
I wonder how many people have been able to duplicate Jason\’s model, or how many have learned enough from him to build a successful business.
My guess is that the number is low, if it exists at all.
Meanwhile, he takes broad swipes at those who are making a difference in other\’s lives, indicating that affiliate marketer\’s are the bottom dwellers of the Internet. But, of course, he noted that he WASN\’T speaking about the people in the room. It seems disingenuous to me.
Calacanis continued by saying those who seek to get rich quick were poisoning the well with their affiliate spam. What he doesn\’t seem to understand is that the web is laden with people who have gotten rich quick, INCLUDING him self!
How many years did it take for Jason to build a business that was sold for $25 million? Three? Four, perhaps?
By anyone\’s standards, that is getting rich quick. And how did he do it? On the backs of bloggers doing all the heavy lifting for him.
Does he deserve what he got? Absolutely! I have no problem with people getting rich quick. That\’s part of the new technology culture. Things move very fast.
But I find it hypocritical that Jason criticizes others seeeking to capitalize in their own way.
Jason then proceeded to criticize all the people who \”game\” social networking sites to promote their \”spam\” sites.
The irony is that Jason regularly uses web 2.0 sites to promote his blog and his new search engine.
One audience member even called him out stating that he was being hypocritical.
After the keynote, I encountered several people who had their own comments and thoughts on the keynote speech. With one exception, they thought that Jason was way off base, out of touch and probably trying to get a rise out of people.
Some would call it genius. I\’d call it obnoxious and arrogant.
I felt like Jason\’s foul language from the platform was rude and disrespectful. I certainly would not want to embrace these character qualities as my own and wonder why others would want to portray themselves in this light.
One of the most stunning moments was when Jason addressed PayPerPost.com. He said, \”Anyone here from PayPerPost? You need to kill yourself. I\’m kidding. Well, I wouldn\’t mind it if you did.\”
It wasn\’t cute. It wasn\’t funny. It just demonstrated an utter lack of discernment.
What it really tells me is that Jason Calacanis got lucky with Weblogs.com. The fact of the matter is, MANY people got lucky with their first big sale. I believe I did with my sale to Yahoo! And I can point to numerous other entrepreneurs who built the right site at the right time and were able to make the right sale.
I think it becomes a problem when it goes to your head, and that may be precisely what has happened in Jason\’s case. Selling a site does not give you the privilege of being abusive towards others who are doing their best to do likewise.
When I asked Shawn Collins (who organizes Affiliate Summit and asked Jason to speak) what he thought of Jason\’s talk, he said that Jason was pushing people to think bigger.
If that\’s the case, I think there are more constructive ways to accomplish the goal.
I\’m very disappointed in my first contact with Jason, but if I have contact with him this week I\’ll follow up and report on that. I have no dispute with him as a person, but I very much disagree with what he said from the platform. He definitely likes to think big, and I applaud that, but I tend to wonder if his thinking is grounded in reality.
Jason, I\’d be happy to buy you a coke and hear you out on this. Who knows… we could become fast friends. ;-)