Convenience

I used to manage a group of very talented people at AOL that was named “Convenience” by someone more senior than me, likely in a fit of wry humor. It was somewhat embarrassing to hand out my business card at places like Citibank and watch the reaction of senior bankers in blue suits. They immediately sized me up with cold stares, trying to understand if I ran the company’s snack stand or was one of those staffers with no power and a silly title like “Chief Digital Convergence Evangelist.” They usually decided to ignore it along with the many other features of the new media world they didn’t understand. They were partly contemptuous and partly envious. Or so I imagined. But, since Bob Pittman’s mantra was that AOL’s mission was to offer convenience, it was something to be proud of within the confines of CC1, the hanger-like space in the wastelands near Dulles airport where most of us worked.

But the concept has stayed with me. On the one hand, it’s a truism to say that businesses should offer convenience to their customers—it’s like saying they should create value—but on the other hand, it’s worth keeping in mind. We live in a crowded, noisy world and it’s only getting worse. Someone or something that saves us time or makes things easier (as good a definition of convenience as any other) could be worth a lot.

Which brings me to the state of the web. I find things are going in the opposite direction. Where once it was empowering to be able to see all your stocks in one portfolio online (your own private Bloomberg) or shop in your pajamas, it seems the social network explosion has increased the amount of content online to the point where it’s almost impossible to cut through the noise and actually absorb anything or find something meaningful. It’s only going to get worse.

Let’s face it: the web is overwhelming. I had a friend tell me she was bored by Facebook. It left her feeling “flat.” It’s become a utility. A really useful one but what future does it have if it leaves people without any emotion?

So where do we go from here? The premise of so many new social networking sites—that shared tastes equal compatibility—doesn’t work for me. (Maybe I’m underestimating them.) What is compatibility? Similar tastes? Similar personality traits? Shared experiences? Shared culture? All of the above. And more. What about the dictum for successful relationships—that opposites attract? As I go about my daily business these days, I try to be mindful of what interactions and connections matter to me—and why. It does go beyond shared taste, that I know. Just because we both like “The Sopranos” doesn’t mean we’ll get along. And it doesn’t mean that you’ll enjoy “Wolf Hall” the way I am these days.

Many sites are going after this space, hoping to find the glue that can bond people together, thereby creating value and keeping them coming back. And telling their friends. I find two problems with this: that I don’t need to meet THAT MANY new people when it comes down to it and I don’t have a burning need to talk about Esperanza Spalding, the great new jazz/crossover artist I just discovered. (Although I just did, didn’t I?) It’s partly a generational thing. Recent college grads, because of their age and comfort with the digital world and because they’re still very much in discovery mode, probably do really want to meet others like them and to share the latest cool band some online buddy in Norway turned them on to.

We at Trybe think about this a lot. T is a prominent researcher in neural psychology. Our goal is to offer relevance through the ultimate in personalization. Enough said. After all, we’re supposed to be in stealth mode. Although we’re also in pitch mode. Of course we believe we can do better than the competition. But it’ll take a crack team working for a few months for us to prove it.