Why Twitter gets it right: Yossi Vardi about NYC and South Dakota

Written on 9th December 2008                                                                                                              1 COMMENT
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

An Internet legend is about to hit a stage in Paris. Luckily it’s the one of Le Web and I can cover it for you. He was the original investor in ICQ, you might have heard about it, and went on an investing spree afterwards. Every now and then, tech blogs cover another project by his hand.

I’m talking about Yossi Vardi. He’s an impressive man with a great sense of humor. When he talks, geeky Paris listens. Tech blogger Kara Swisher from BoomTown will interview him. Here we go.

“He’s like the Forrest Gump of the Internet”, Swisher opens. Like every year, Vardi presents a new idea. Normally out of the box – like Local Warming -, but this one is really in the box since it concerns an Internet services for corpses. Interviewer Swisher seems to be having a hard time understanding the slightly absurd humor. So it’s about time to get serious.

Users! Users! Users!

Like any other recent tech conference, Le Web is dominated by discussions about the recession. Monetization, cutting costs, pessimism, etc, etc, etc. I can’t hear it anymore. Although I do like the people who go against the flow and say something different than the utterly pessimistic majority. People like Vardi.

So when everybody says you’ll have to monetize your start-up right away, Vardi says that getting users is the most important thing. “The difference in the price of real estate in NYC and South-Dakota is the amount of traffic passing by. After you’ve grown an audience you can monetize it. You can’t monetize your service from day one.”

Good news for Twitter and Facebook…