Survival of the Smartest

If you spend a little time observing a pack of wolves, you quickly notice a hierarchy. There's an alpha male, considered the leader, and his followers. The followers all want to be the alpha, but unless they can challenge and defeat the alpha, they're forced to follow him. The females in the group would want to be with the alpha because he is the strongest or fastest of the males, and thus holds genes that would guarantee their offspring's future.

Humans were very much the same for a long time. The jock was the guy with the girls. He was the popular guy until someone appeared to be better than him, at which point he was replaced. Later this was shifted towards money. The richest guy was considered the popular one. He could make things happen. But recently, this balance of Survival of the fittest has shifted.

I read somewhere once that woman find Dilbert(pictured) attractive. Why is this? By all standards he's the lesser man. He's unhealthy and ugly. It's because he's a geek.

On a subconscious level, people realise that with the advent of the internet as a business and social tool, and a massive part of everyday life, the people who are involved in this sector are the ones with the reliable income in the foreseeable future. On the other side of the spectrum is the current sports star. Though they make millions in a very small time frame, their earning ability is directly linked to their health. And in this world of fast food and couch entertainment it becomes increasingly difficult to stay at the top of your game. It's no longer the survival of the fittest, it's survival of the smartest.

But don't think it's easy to stay at the top in the IT sector. The problem with a web-driven life is that it becomes susceptible to trend. Today people will love your product. Tomorrow they could be enthralled in someone else's product. Or worse, you could get sued for some repercussion that your product has in the real world, like what happened to Napster.

To stay on top in this environment, you need to stay up to date. And by date, I mean literally to the day. You need to know what's hot on the net, and what's the next big thing. This creates the problem that you might fall for a trend that lasts only a week. You could become a cloner...

Definition of word I just made up:

Cloner (noun)

A product or company that copies a successful idea almost to the letter, differing only enough to be distinct, but not enough to discredit the popularity.

On the other hand, cloners can often hit on an idea that makes their idea better than the original. You don't always get it right the first time. Take for instance MySpace. It allowed you to tell other people about you (and later about your band, company or whatever). You had a list of friends, but that's basically as far as you could take it. Then Facebook came along. In essence it was the same concept, but it was focussed on your real identity and your real friends. Not just that, but it shows you your mutual friends to help you figure out how you know someone. Later it also started showing you who you might know on Facebook that you didn't realise was on Facebook, by tracking who's friends are also your friends.

This simple link between the internet and everyday life made Facebook much more popular than MySpace. Not to mention more sophisticated. When you go to someone's MySpace page, you're bombarded by animations, video's, music, flashing banners, games... basically anything that you feel like putting on there. It's messy and noisy. Facebook has a rule: No active content on your profile unless the viewer activates it. It's much cleaner. They're also working on separating your profile into different areas, your critical information being the first thing you see. The rest of your content will be shifted to another page, so a viewer only has to see it if they're interested in it. (do I get my commission now?)

The internet and its relating technologies is where the sustainable income of the future will be. And if you're careful, you might be one of the lucky few to end up on top.

Words:
"First, I sit up. Writing is serious business for which your spine must be straight. I also lean my head slightly downward, looking up at my words as I write. Occasionally I mumble what I'm typing… no clue why."
-Rands in Repose