Image credit: Nattu

Investors pride themselves on being able to spot hot new ideas. When they hear about a new trend, the smart investors can determine whether it’s going to be a big hit or not. Luckily for me, I don’t have any money to invest, because I completely misjudged some of the biggest marketing and cultural phenomena of the last few years.

Here’s a recent idea for a website: users can post pictures and information about themselves on their own personal pages, and then they can visit other people’s pages and post comments about the pictures and information others have posted? And, to top it all off, you can add people to your list of online friends, so it will always seem like someone likes you? Not only can you act upon your own narcissism, but you can help others act upon theirs.

My estimate of the number of people who would be interested in this site would have been in the low hundreds, mostly chatty teenagers. I would only have been off by a few million. Facebook currently boasts 42 million members, and MySpace has 73 million. This means that the only Americans not on one (or both) of these sites are me, fetuses, and people over the age of 103.

I clearly missed that one.

Here’s another idea for a website that I thought would never work. You allow anonymous users to post videos. Of anything. They don’t have to be of any particular quality or subject. In fact, they don’t even need to be professionally made. Users can post their own videos of their cat sleeping on a chair, or of their friend trying to fly off his roof, or of their garage band mangling U2. So how many people will flock to watch these millions of quality videos? Two or three? Friends and family of the poster?

In July of 2006, there were 100 million videos being watched on YouTube every day. The site contains 83 million videos, and in 2006, it was sold to Google for the sum of $1.65 billion.

I missed that one too. To be honest, I have used YouTube a few times. I did not realize that in addition to posting videos of their cousin singing ‘Happy Birthday’ after inhaling helium, someone would also post obscure recordings of Paco de Lucia and Lightnin’ Hopkins. After all, even if 99% of the videos are crap, with 83 million videos, that means there are still 830,000 cool videos to watch. That should be enough to keep most people entertained for a while.

So I was off on these trends, but the popularity of Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube say something about the way that people today relate to the world.

The Internet is not just a tool for many people–it has become a central part of their lives. I had always viewed the Internet as a valuable, if slightly unreliable, tool, and an interesting diversion, but I never thought that someone would be willing to sacrifice something truly essential in favor of Internet access.

Then a friend asked me this question: If you had to live without either a car or the Internet, which one would you choose?

Now, presumably you are still allowed to ride in someone else’s car, or use an Internet cafe if needed, but you can only have easy access to one or the other.

I didn’t have to think for long. There have been times overseas when I’ve had neither and lived happily, but in the US, I would take my car.

Here’s why. When I’m overseas, I need the internet to communicate. When I’m in the US, if I want to talk to someone, I just call them, or more likely, set up a time to see them in person. If I want to gamble, I can go to the casino. If I need information, I can look it up in a book. If I want to take a trip, I don’t need to book an airline ticket, because I can just drive there (as long as they don’t drop the speed limit to 55). If I want to look at pornography… well, the Internet is still good for that. But without a car, I couldn’t visit anyone or anything in person. I would be stranded in my house, unable to so much as make a trip to the grocery store, let alone visit friends and relatives or embark on the great American tradition of a road trip.

Many of my friends, however, give a very different answer. Their faces pale with the thought of losing the Internet, but they toss away their cars without a second thought. Interestingly, many of the people who scorn the car live either in Europe, or in East Coast cities with subway systems. On the other hand, I live in Kansas City (when I’m in the US) which I think has one bus.

This illustrates part of the difference in perception that underlies the choice of Internet over car. If you’re online, and all your friends and family are online, then you can visit them there. It doesn’t matter where you are or where they are; you can meet in cyberspace (is that word even used anymore?). The virtual experience can replace the physical one. For many people, it does.

But I still want to be there. Chatting with someone online, or leaving a note on their Facebook page, is a pale imitation of actually being there. Looking at pictures or watching video of an event is similarly a thin and meager substitute. Real emotions and real sensations come from real experience. There is no substitute for meeting someone in person. There is no substitute for experiencing the sights and sounds and smells of the world with your own senses, letting it surround you.

Many people take pictures of their vacations (and post them on Facebook). I don’t even own a camera. A three by five image is simply no substitute for the being there.

And that’s why I never thought Facebook or Youtube would work. They might be nice diversions, but they’re no substitute for reality.