That’s it… that’s all I have to say.

I’ve offered 1,000 arguments as to why social networks aren’t valuable, because they don’t (none of them) make money, and my mantra, users do not equal profit. Obviously, no one except the people I pay to agree with me, agree with me, so here’s yet another brick in my “get off it, suckers” wall.

Facebook does not create or control anything they can legally protect.

As a media company, FB doesn’t create any content – that’s generated by its users, and it doesn’t control where those users create that content. Where’s Friendster? Where will MySpace be in six months? There’s a reason why Viacom has been around for awhile making money – they create and control something that is legally theirs, and cannot be copied or moved.

There are a lot of great ideas out there that you can’t patent. If someone brings you one, don’t give them money.

Facebook can’t own knowing how fat the captain of your high school lacrosse team is nowadays. Facebook can’t own stalking the twink you met at Movement but only got her first name and hometown. Facebook can’t patent your (my) desire to move up the wit-rankings among your (my) friends with status updates.

1. Scroll to the bottom and click “English US”
2. Select “English Pirate” from the menu.

and you’re done.

Enjoy.

It’s fairly elaborate; even the rollover text is accurately translated into Pirate – and I should know. I work with a bunch of pirates… BUTT PIRATES! Get it!?! It should be noted that while those butt-pirates over at FB are losing money, doing a piss-poor job of getting ROI for their advertisers, and leaking talent like Radiohead after The Bends, they still have time to change the entire site into Pirate.

Now, the Pirate Bay guys are officially the biggest whiners on the planet, claiming that after the verdict came through that they have to pay for what they took, they said, “We’re the heroes here.” Heroes? Really? You’re not sealing rice and giving it to starving children here guys. You’re helping some fourteen-year-old in Duluth, MN watch Spiderman 3. Perhaps there will be a Nobel Prize for accessible Romantic Comedies in the near future, but for now, get over yourselves.

Then there’s this

Defenders of the four say that no copyright material is stored on The Pirate Bay’s servers and no swapping of files takes place there. The site’s legal adviser, Mikael Viborg, has stated that because “torrent” files and trackers merely point to content, the site’s activities are legal under Swedish law.

First, yes … that counts. If you throw a party, invite a bunch of high school girls, spread drugs on the table, then invite a bunch of convicted sex-offenders, and call it the Rape Party… I mean really, no one made these dudes call their site the Pirate Bay. They should be arrested just for being that obnoxious.

Also, what is the motivation again? What makes them think they’re heroes? I s’pose they think they’re leading some kind of revolution against … against what? Against paying for shit?

The whole thing is retarded. Get off your entitlement pony and go to jail, dicks.

While I will step up and defend the value, and my personal preference for newspapers, I can’t say they won’t die. They really are up against a big threat. David Pauly @ Bloomberg.com does a great job of lamenting why we’ll (as a culture, and David personally) miss them – but I don’t think we should count them out just yet.

First, most of the DOA talk is coming from The Believers in the “new media.” The people reading the DOA talk are people who get all their information online. It’s all created a bit of “Nascar Blindness.” The bottom line is that most of the country, in Tennessee and Nevada and Texas, still gets their news from Papers and big-smiling, makeup-caked news at 11PM. Unfortunately, ad agency media-buyers are located in New York and Chicago so they’re part of The Believers. It’s a total circle-jerk, and if newspapers die, it will be a murder, not a natural death.

Now let’s look at other industries that have disappeared completely. The most direct comparison is the rapid message delivery industry, or the Pony Express. The Telegraph killed it in a matter of weeks. Then there is the case of the passenger ocean-liners that were replaced by intercontinental air-travel (well, it converted to recreational cruises). What about the the disappearance of horses as the primary mode of transportation killed by the automobile becoming affordable?

All of these, and the rest, have two very important things in common. First, the deaths were quick and painless. In the case of every dead-industry, the replacement technology was so vastly improved from the prior that there was simply no question. In the case of the automobile, it took some time for it to become affordable, but once it was, the horse-drawn buggy disappeared within a few years. We’ve had affordable internet for about twenty years at this point.

Second, and more importantly, in every case, the replacement industry was profitable. You better believe that Western Union was making money when it replaced the Pony Express, and right away. How can so many, very smart and educated people, be sure that the newspaper industry is dieing because it’s losing money, when they’re claiming that it’s being killed by an industry that’s losing money? It doesn’t make sense until you realize that these smart, educated people also have based their income on keeping the Venture Capital flowing into Internet companies. I’m not saying they don’t believe it, but I am saying they’ve tricked themselves into believing it … and if they keep it up, I think they’ll get their way.

Someone, somewhere, sometime, needs to sell something to an actual customer.

Microsoft’s “big ad deal,” is a “seven figure” sale in various digital media for a television show on the Discovery Channel. As in, it’s ads for something that someone is hoping to sell ads on. You also have to look no further than the majority of ads on MySpace to see the fallacy. How many of the display spaces are for sites advertising free smileys? While I’m not saying that those smileys aren’t extremely awesome and adding value to our economy, they’re free, so the host must be trying to ramp up their pageviews to sell some advertising.

But to who?

The first bubble was about people trying to sell stuff on the Internet, and that didn’t work out so well. So everyone decided, “well, since we can’t sell anything, maybe we can sell advertising to people trying to sell stuff.” That “stuff” seems to be other people trying to sell advertising.

Do you see how this can’t last?

After some thought, and ROL (Ranting Out Loud) this weekend, I have downgraded Twitter from, “Funny joke that’s annoying but doesn’t really hurt anyone,” to “The only reason Biz shouldn’t be thrown in jail is because he sincerely thinks this is a good idea, and isn’t malicious about this at all.”

Essentially, Twitter, and other useless tech-rush companies are stealing money from old people. It’s a bit of a round about way, and doesn’t involve a gun, or fake FloMax, but it’s pension-pinching none the less.

Here’s how it goes:
1. Twitter (or revenueless company X) gets investment capital and starts building users and hype.
2. Founders probably think that someday this will make money, but they aren’t sure how.
3. Smart investors don’t buy into a company without a business plan – unless of course they plan on selling out in a big IPO.
4. Founders, fueled by Investors looking for that big sellout, puff the company up like a presenting peacock.
5. Fund managers to small financial advisers buy into the hype and haven’t learned their less from the last 1,700 failed tech companies, and recommend the stock to their clients, your grandparents.
6. Your grandparents say, “Tweeter? I heard Paul Harvey speak of that on the wireless. Whatever you say the kids are into these days…”
7. Initial investors and Founders sell out completely over a couple of years, make %192308123812 on their money and never, ever, actually had to even worry about a business plan.

Dicks.

Phase I : Collect Users
Phase III : Profit

As I walked around explaining that plan to every jackass with a laptop and a table staked out in a coffee shop, I knew I had heard it before.

In 1998, the Underpants Gnomes episode of South Park aired. While they never really called out the tech bubble explicitly, as South Park is apt to do, the statement is clear.

Gnome: Stealing underpants Biiiiig business!
Kyle: Wait, business?! You know about business?!
Gnome: Sure! That’s what Gnomes do!
Kyle So, why have you been stealing all our underpants?
Gnome Phase I = Collect Underpants … Phase III = Profit!
Kyle Wait, what’s Phase II?
Gnome Don’t you understand!? It’s simple! Phase I = Collect Underpants … Phase III = Profit!

…. and so on.

A cartoon from 1998, gets it … how do you still not?

Gnomes Episode

Due to the smart, and the fact that my favorite holiday fast approaches (on Wednesday), I’m calling April Fools on Hunch.com. This one folks, is a good one. Catrina, you have done it again.

Now, we just need Twitter to finally admit it was all just a big, sad joke as well.

Apparently our president doesn’t know that. I honestly wasn’t terribly concerned about the economy until Obama asked Twitter CEO for economic advice. You know, Twitter, the company that has burnt through four years of venture capital and still swears it will figure out a plan generate revenue … soon, they promise, really soon.

Also news to me is that my, now presumedly mentally handicapped, generation has changed the definition of business terminology that has been around since the advent of commerce. This article claims that Twitter experienced 33% growth last month.

In this case, “growth” refers to users not revenue. On planet Viability, in the system of Actually Does Something Valuable, “growth” refers to revenue just as it has for hundreds of years.

USERS DO NOT EQUAL REVENUE