Drewbot

John Dvorak’s review of the first Macintosh, in 1984.

One of the biggest mistakes one can make in media is relying on the “focus group of one.” That is, basing mass market media decisions on opinions held by yourself.

Working at a media company in San Francisco, I have to constantly give myself a reality check. San Francisco is such an odd, island community that it’s easy to assume that everyone watches 30 Rock on their iPhones while eating their overpriced organic lunch. It’s laughable, but so many people actually do that here that it’s hard to remember that most people don’t.

Which leads me to this quote.

The tech community in San Francisco is an island within an island. People tend to forget that only 1% of 1% of the US have heard the name Michael Arrington. The problem is that same 1% of 1% (the 250, as they used to be called) is so hyper-connected that no one outside their network seems to exist. And they all share the same interests. So, for this community, the “focus group of one” becomes the “focus group of 10,000” and becomes all the more deceiving.

Blame the “focus group of 10,000” on the quote above, even though it was probably more like 100 at the time.

During the boom times, before September 2008, this focus group helped fund anyone and their mother who walked in with a Web 2.0 idea. The Valley became the Galapagos, flourishing with a diverse set of life based on a very specific set of constraints.

But now the money’s gone, and the shotgun of innovation over the last few years has to prove itself in markets that matter. We need to remember that most people don’t have an iPhone to pull out and enter their location into, simply for fun. Hell, most people with iPhones don’t want to. We need people like Steve Jobs, a guy who saw geeks furiously typing in front of green screens, realized that this behavior couldn’t spread as-is, and attached a mouse on the side. Something no geek needed.

(Via Fortune Brainstorm Tech)