Notes from Future of Web Apps (FOWA Miami 2008)… taken as a flow of consciousness while listening to Matt Mullenweg (founder of Wordpress, on which this blog is built).  Side note: Miami was a lot warmer than FOWA London 2007… but both drew equally awesome crowds and speakers.  Photos via JESS3 to follow.

MATT:

What kind of foundations are you laying down for your site and community to grow?

Scaling - fundamentally separates us from other industries

  1. platform
  2. business
  3. community
  4. people

Wordpress Stats:

Sept 2006

  • 18m global uniques
  • 350k blogs
  • ~#202 in US

London 2007

  • 88m Global uniques
  • 1579k blogs
  • #17 in US

Now

  • 2523k blogs
  • #6?

Over 800,000 splogs deleted

Gems to consider dropping in convo:

  • Spammers are the terrorists that are trying to hijack our web 2.0 communities; take advantage of our communities
  • Don’t ignore them
  • Flight from spam = MySpace and Facebook Mail

Scaling: Platform

(not something I fully understood, but wanted to learn more… instead, listened and did not take notes… sorry!)

Scaling: Community

  • Everyone after you will be less passionate
  • Once you get passed a certain point, let go of it (cp., let them vote for your feature) — things that were on the roadmap, but in a different order
  • Institutionalize serendipity; have to personalize, people love social

Scaling: Business

  • “I hate ads” (most people do); don’t show them to the guys there every day, it will piss them off
  • value of not showing ads to 96% of the viewers = millions
  • Wordpress CPM = $3 - $4 (which is HUGE, compared to the 7 or 8 cents MySpace hopes to get)
  • Host: CNN, New York Times, Fox News

Scaling: People

Great people = rich environment + worthwhile problems

Tackle something worthwhile, even if it is a little outside of your league

  1. Passion for space; people that are doing it in their free time
  2. Personality fit; harder to fire than to hire, don’t just hire because you need “bodies”
  3. Ability to learn, a curiosity; IQ not as important, Google emphasizes education, Microsoft logic; things you need to know for a job you learn on the job
  4. Taste (good taste); hard to teach, any red flags - ok to say NO

Great people don’t like to work with average people. They don’t like to “suffer fools.”

Work with people on a contract basis first (like dating before getting married)

Bonus: Scaling insights about your BRAND (Scaling category #5)… think about the legendary brands that have been around for decades, a century in some cases:

  • Ivory - it floats
  • P&G have 23 unique brands that make billions each year
  • FTD: Say it with flowers (1917)

Remember: You can use words to excite and activate.