Would these sites achieve success without Guy Kawasaki?

Guy has such a large following, he can put up just about any site and hawk it to his 10,000K+ followers on Twitter and other social marketing avenues day after day and make it a success. Sites like AllTop and Truemors have been done many times over for even lower development costs than Guy’s ~$10K sites without the same success. However, the original sites were missing a key ingredient – Guy Kawasaki.

I suspect Guy will use these sites his next book as case studies explaining how anyone can take a $10k site and make it into a huge success using the new power of today’s social media. Well, me thinks not just anyone can do this. However Guy certainly can use his well earned reputation to build a following for any piece of schlock he throws on the web. For the rest of us, we need to create revolutionary products that achieve market adoption on their own merits.

I estimate the full and complete public backing that Guy gives each of these sites is worth approximately $500K per site. So really, this chapter in his book should read: “Can you create a successful website with $10K and a $500K guru?”

Most webmaster trying to get a new website noticed would give their left nut to gain the kind of support that Guy is giving Alltop and Truemores. Heck, many rational webmasters bite their tongues, or even rave about these sites just to stay on Guy’s good side – you never know when you might need a $500K guru pushing your product.

Guy earned his social recommendation power through many years of inspired hard work, book writing, and amazing oratory skills, so I am not taking anything away from him. In fact, I am one of his biggest fans and have read nearly all his books at least once. I would do almost the same thing if I had Guy’s popularity and reputation. Although I would use my assets to hawk truly revolutionary websites and entrepreneurs, rather than run of the mill, warmed over website ideas. zzzzzzzzzzz

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