And of course – don’t forget to check out the Exclusive Concepts website!

MySpace will cite heavy numbers, but ask them:

1) How often their users USE the service
2) What percentage of their users are ACTIVE

Bottom line is this: Just as I predicted, MySpace is not innovating. They are moving slowly. They just don’t seem motivated.

Much as I am jealous of Mark, I respect the fact that he is not just some dumb kid who stumbled upon a great opportunity in FaceBook. Well, he did just stumble on it, but once he did, he realized what he had, and now he is building something great.

What have I been up to?

I taped my first radio interview on the Frugal Yankee Radio show – all about blogs and viral marketing.

I was on my first television panel – MSNBC’s Your Money with JJ Ramberg.

I attended my first Search Engine Strategies conference (the big conference in our industry), at Yahoo!’s invitation (as a guest speaker).

The Financial Times is compiling an article about me for their mergers and acquisitions report (no, i’m not selling!)

I’ve conducted several seminars at Bentley College – one on online community building, and the other on the topic of search engine optimization. I also judged an enterpreneurship contest for the Bentley Entrepreneurship Society.

I booked a trip to Israel in June that i’m VERY excited about.

We’ve almost doubled our staff at Exclusive Concepts thanks to some very loyal clients and the very dedicated team I am lucky enough to work with on a daily basis. There will be some very interesting developments coming soon.

I’ve also had the opportunity to catch up with some great friends, who remind me what I work so hard for.

Have a great day everyone.

The Cambridge SEO Meetup.

Brian Hawkins, master networker and all-around good guy, invited me to take part in the event and present a case study on how we get our clients out of Google’s supplemental index. Mark from MarksGuide.com (a GREAT local blog about networking) posted a review of the event here.

In attendance were very interesting people with varying levels of SEO knowledge. I’ve been to a fair number of SEO events, and I actually learned something from this group. I’ll be back!

It was a great experience. I usually don’t get nervous, but I have to admit that I was a bit anxious as I stepped into the “elevator” for the elevator pitch. That part was actually filmed first and I was able to get most of the butterflies out of my system. Amanda (from RealTimeShredding) who pitched Jeff and I (my fellow panelist) was incredibly sweet, and I think she did a great job. Elevator pitches like that aren’t easy and she knocked it out of the park. Jeff is a super-smart entrepreneur and VC; and it was a pleasure being on with him.

Are you a small business owner? I’d love to hear from you.

I’ve done this several times over the years and I really enjoy it. Students (especially Bentley students) are not afraid to be blunt, and often what ensues is a very open conversation that includes both the pros and cons of Entrepreneurship.

One of the students who attended just sent me a nice email:

I should have emailed you a week or so ago but it slipped my mind until I came across your business card today. I wanted to thank you for speaking to our entrepreneurial thinking class. Your visit was one of the more informative and interesting presentations we have had over the course of the semester and I just wanted to let you know that it was appreciated.

- Tara

That really made my day.

In my essay, “Reflection on Joe Trippi’s ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised‘ ” I talked about the importance of a two-way dialogue between customer and company. In reality, the Internet fosters an integrated dialogue, rather than just a two-way dialogue, where may key stakeholders influence the discussion.

In a follow-up, “The Revolution is Happening Right Now,” I provided real-time examples of the long-tail at work, as a way to demonstrate its power.

Then, in MySpace is Dead, I took the example of a large Internet company, “MySpace,” and argued that niche sites that do something very similar would begin competing with it. It has started already.

So, what will this revolution look like?

It’s hard to predict human behavior, but here is what I think will happen.

On television we have several major television networks, and then a number of premium cable channels that cost extra.

On the Internet, while we’ve gone through cycles of expansion and contraction, it would appear now that the revolution will manifest itself in the following way:

Thousands… hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of little Web 2.0 companies will emerge, each one catering very specifically to the needs of a very small group of people through the Software as a Service model.

- Want to plan a party? Check out MyPunchBowl.com – a company whose time is dedicated solely to helping you plan the best party every.

- Like online gaming? Check out GuildeCafe – a social networking platform that brings gamers together in teams.

- Need a better tool to track your finances? Check out Geezo.

These Web 2.0 sites are popping up every day to address the needs of small niche groups in powerful and compelling ways. Some sites focus on entertainment, while others focus on personal or professional progress.

But… Web 2.0 companies that are being created target more than just consumers. Many people know of SalesForce.com (web-based CRM)… one of the first companies to deliver software as a service… but we have a client who is, in many ways, the SalesForce.com of the staffing industry. They’ve targeted a specific niche and created a product that appeals to that niche better than the goliath in the market. Have they been successful? Unbelievably so!

It’s true… in the Web 2.0 world, companies will have to either Go Big, Go Niche, or Go Home.

The interesting thing here is that while it costs a lot of money to build and distribute a television station, it costs little money to build a disruptively powerful website, at least in the eyes of the niche it targets. In fact, some venture capitalists are concerned because entrepreneurs need less and less money to build their companies (Web 2.0 companies), and the exits are likely to be small as well. YouTube aside… these Web 2.0 companies sell for good money quickly, but only few will fetch billion-dollar price tags.

In a lot of ways… These Web 2.0 companies are the enemies of the YouTube/MySpace/FaceBook world. The former gets very specific, while the latter (YouTube/MySpace/FaceBook) target everyone and their brother.

The Internet is ushering in a new era of entrepreneurism that will indeed change all of our lives… because that is the specific focus of all of these companies: To change our every-day lives, one niche at a time.

When Yahoo! sets out to do 500 things (build a great television portal, build a great movie portal, build a great financial portal, etc) they get spread thin.

When a lone entrepreneur, or small group of entrepreneurs set out to focus on building one great thing, they can direct all of their efforts exclusively on that one thing. Check out MyPunchBowl.com (listed above)… they have literally streamlined the party-planning process in a compelling way. We’ve all used Evite.com, but the workflow on PunchBowl rocks in comparison.

As you can see from the picture below… these entrepreneurs are hungry. This picture was taken at a WebInnovators event that I attended last Monday. Most of the people in this room at entrepreneus who have the sights set… not on changing the world, but on changing your world… if you fit their niche:)

Thanks to a connection from David Teten at Nitron Advisors, Majestric Research (an investment research company) invited me to have dinner with with fund managers and investors from major global investment firms. I was joined by a handful of other industry experts, including Adam Epstein (President & COO of adMarketplace), Joe Myeress (eBay Powerseller placing in the top 200 eBay sellers in 2005), and John Aiken from Majestic.

This was no traditional event. Myself and my fellow experts sat together in a private room in Spire Restaurant, located in the trendy Nine Zero hotel in Boston. We drank wine, consumed delicious food, and were peppered by insightful questions from a select group of the world’s leading investors and analysts covering the Internet space.

- What will happen to Yahoo if they crack down on paid search arbiters?

- How do you explain the low adoption rate of Google Checkout thus far?

- Will the “long tail” become saturated?

- How does Yahoo combat the brain-drain Google has catalyzed by sucking up the best minds from all over the world?
- How will Google’s quality score affect CPC rates?

These are just some questions the analysts posed to the group. In sum, and to put it bluntly, I was shocked at the depth of knowledge these analysts possessed. They knew more about the field than many people who call themselves Internet marketing experts, and the breadth of industry data offered by Majestic would excite geeks everywhere.

This event was small, intimate, and wonderfully challenging. I’d love to do more of these.