The Killer App Is Love?
from the bizlove?--bizpuke dept
I’ve made it clear that I’m not a fan of people who call something a “killer app”. I think it’s an overused, and often misused phrase that means someone is trying to hype you on something, rather than give you something useful. Mix with that new agey business concepts, and you get the worst of the pop culture, airport lounge business books around, called The Killer App Is Love. It’s written by a bigshot at Yahoo! who apparently has no clue what world he’s living in. The San Jose Mercury News’ review is pretty savage and makes most of the points I would make. Anyone who reads Techdirt regularly knows that I’m no fan of cut throat business practices (which I think are very short sigthed in most cases), but that doesn’t mean you go to the other extreme of trying to touch or hug everyone you do business with. And, to make it even worse he starts throwing in made up words such as “bizlove” and “lovecats”. If you didn’t already have evidence that folks at Yahoo! have started going off the deep end, here you are. Anyway, if Yahoo is so into “loving” everyone, why do they make us hate them so, by throwing pop up ads and other intrusive ads at every damn turn?
Comments on “The Killer App Is Love?”
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The only reason I would comment on this is that he also wrote an article in Fast Company this month promoting the book. I thought it was funny that you mentioned an Airport Lounge, because I actually met this guy while waiting for a flight in Dallas. It was about four or five months after Yahoo bought Broadcast.com (where he started). http://www.fastcompany.com/online/55/love.html
It’s very rare that I remember anyone, much less a guy at an airport – but I recall us having a pretty in depth conversation about the Internet and the New Economy (there was one back then). I’ll probably read the book, not because I necessarily agree with what he says, but because I know that he believes what he is saying. Strong personal conviction is lacking in business publishing and at least he has that.
off-topic reply
I see that this guy is Chief Solutions Officer at Yahoo. So off the top of your head, would this guy report to the CIO, the CTO, the COO, or directly to the CEO? Also today, Enron fired their Chief Accounting Officer and Chief Risk Officer. Did those guys report to the CFO, the COO or the CEO?
Is everybody today (except me) a Chief Officer of something? Does any company call the custodian a Chief Sanitation Officer yet? Is the senior barista at Starbuck’s a Chief Latte Officer?
Does “the buck stops here” have any meaning today when everybody is the Chief of an increasingly narrowly-defined area?