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The $4 billion warehouse
Silicon Valley investment titans finance dreams of grandeur, knowing they get rich even if the new business isn't a huge success.
By Mark Gimein
[08/02/99]

Silicon Follies
Silicon Follies
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[07/31/99]

21st Challenge
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[07/31/99]

21st Challenge
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[07/31/99]

A Linux lament
As Red Hat prepares to go public, one Linux hacker's dreams of IPO glory are crushed by The Man.
By C. Scott Ananian
[07/30/99]

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The problem was that AMIX pre-dated a widespread network on which it could run. "Much of its energies were soaked up by trying to create an online service from scratch," says Doc Searls, who did marketing work for AMIX and who is now senior editor of Linux Journal and one of the drafters of the Cluetrain Manifesto. AMIX disappeared shortly after Phil Salin died in 1991.

"The stumbling blocks in AMIX's days were mountains and now those mountains are gone," says Searls, who is now on the board of Adeste.com. "Think about it: Phil had to create his own Internet. In hindsight, it couldn't be done ... The time really is now. It wasn't then, much as we wanted it to be."

Now that the Internet provides the network infrastructure that AMIX struggled to create, a small new group of companies, including Adeste.com, Advoco.com and Guru.com, is preparing to bring information markets to life. Each company varies in its approach -- Adeste.com is concentrating first on areas like academia (students who need tutoring or research help) and technical support for computer products; Advoco is building its site around professional services, parenting and pets; and Guru.com is devoted mainly to the needs of the professional self-employed who work as contractors and freelancers. "We're going to empower them to run their businesses better," says Jon Slavet, CEO of Guru.com.

Advoco.com informally launched its site last week but plans to beef it up with more categories by year's end, while Adeste's technology will be ready sometime in August and the service will debut soon thereafter. Guru.com is planning to launch in a similar time frame.

Jon Slavet and his brother James, who serves as Guru.com's president and chief business strategist, got the idea for Guru.com when looking for independent contractors to hire at previous jobs. Finding the right people, said Jon Slavet, "was an incredibly frustrating ad hoc process."

"There was really no place to go to find the kinds of people we were looking for," said James Slavet. To find a freelance designer, programmer or other professional, most people rely on word of mouth, mailing lists or occasionally, high-priced headhunters who specialize in freelance projects. Guru.com aims to change that, although James Slavet emphasized that the site is not intended to work like a classifieds site or a temp service. Instead, he says it is meant to foster a kind of online professional culture. The site already offers tips on billing clients, insurance, home office supplies and more and the Slavets says the company will encourage a "guru-to-guru" approach, in which independent professionals -- everyone from "programmers to massage therapists" -- will be able to find and rely on one another. "We affectionately call it the guru nation," Slavet said. "Gurus have amazing expertise in specific domains, and allowing gurus to tap into the expertise of other gurus will be very powerful."

Adeste.com's approach is to partner with a number of other sites and integrate its information market across the Web. Stern imagines a scenario in which an amateur gardener goes to a Web site specializing in home improvements and posts a question, say about building a flower bed in Northern California's hard clay soil; the Adeste.com service then posts the question on a site geared specifically toward contractors and a knowledgeable contractor contacts the gardener. Neither party needs to know that Adeste brought them together.

"From a user's point of view, we have invented the Bat Computer," says Adeste's Stern. "You type in a question in a wide range of subject areas, and it walks you through the solution in real time. It responds to your requests for clarification, and it can answer questions which have never been asked before."

Of course, the success of info markets is predicated on people paying for information -- and so far, the Web has not been successful at charging for anything other than physical goods, like books and CDs, that can be delivered to your door.

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