I had the good fortune of being able to conduct an email interview with Guy Kawasaki shortly after the OC Unconference.

For a guy (me) who left a large software company (Autodesk) in January to pursue my passion (online community), and also to establish more of a work life balance with my wife and daughter (I now commute to my garage), this is really great content. I grew up in rural KY, but I was lucky enough to have a few geeks in my family. When I was 5, my Dad brought home our first computer, an Apple II. I was immediately obsessed with the personal computer. Many influences, including the Apple II, and Guy's early books, led me to Tech and to the Bay Area.

The following interview primarily focuses on Truemors, Guy's new "Citizen Rumor" site that he launched for a purported $12,107.09. The launch of the site has met with a large amount of vitriol from the blogosphere. In the interview Guy also provides some insight into the radical changes happening with regard to funding and launching new sites, his current priorities, and his day to day life.

How is traffic and participation on Truemors?

Traffic has been around 200,000 - 250,000 page views on days when the
blogosphere is ripping Truemors/me to shreds, and we get on Digg, delicious,
or the Inquirer. After these tirades wear off, we go down to about 100,000
page views per day. A bad day is 30,000 page views. Incidentally, we're not
counting when bots hit the site.

You want to hear some good news/bad news? Many people consider my blog, How
to Change the World, very successful: #16 in Technorati, blah blah blah.
After two weeks, Truemors gets ten times more page views than my blog. Maybe
I should let Federated Media know, huh?

Are you hitting the marks you expected?

I didn't know what to expect, but I've been pleased. I'd love to have one
million page views a day, but I'd also love to have a 100 mph slap shot and
drive a German car too. This is one of the beauties of a "credit-card"
company: a hatchet isn't hanging over your head to reach the "conservative"
projections you fabricated for your investors. I define success for
Truemors as selling $1 million worth of advertising per year. This would be
a joke of a failure for a venture-capital funded company.


When and how will you decide that Truemors is sticking, or not?

After all the hype and controversy dies down in the next week if we're in
the 50,000 page views per day I'd say Truemors is moderately sticky. If
we're at 100,000 page views per day in three to six months, I'd say it's
sticky. If we're at 500,000 page views per day in a year, I'll never need to
get on an airplane again.

What makes you the most excited about Truemors?

I'm a simple person. I love three things about Truemors: (1) It enables
anybody to "tell the world." You don't need a printing press, laser printer,
website, or even blog. Information can't get much more democratized than
this.

(2) I love when people tell me something to the effect of "I heard it was
crappy, but I found it strangely addicting." Reading Truemors on a regular
basis does make people more interesting conversationalists.

(3) I love that 99% of the blogosphere thinks it sucks, I suck, and it will
fail. Maybe the other 1% is my friends, and they're lying to me so as not to
hurt my feelings.

I'll tell you a little Guy Kawasaki story. When I was much younger, I went
out with the daughter of a very successful business person. He once told me,
"Marrying my daughter would be very good for anyone's career."

I'll never forget that--nor did I marry her. For one thing, my father was
very successful too--I didn't need this guy's name. Second, apparently he
didn't think I could succeed on my own. I'll never forget what he said...it
motivated me for years.

This is how I feel about the blogosphere saying that Truemors is crap. These
guys won't drag me into their black hole--Truemors is going to further
democratize information and perhaps die trying, but it's better to fail
doing something positive than succeed doing something negative.

What's next from you? More experiments with participatory sites like Truemors?

Three months ago I didn't know I was doing Truemors, so who knows. We've had
several "franchise" inquiries already which is interesting, but it's way too
early to consider such a thing. Check back with me in six months.

You recently said that an "average guy" doesn't have a chance of successfully launching a new site without an innovative idea and "tons of money". Can you expand on that? What advice would you have for everyone slaving away in their garage or dorm room?

I never said that. Or, at least I never intended to say that. If nothing
else, Truemors might indicate that a normal guy with $12,000 or less can
kick ass. HotorNot, Fark, PlentyofFish, and WreckedExotics are way beyond
"indicate"-- they have proven that this is possible.

Not everything has to be a Google or YouTube to be a "success." Small sites
can be great "lifestyle" businesses: no outside investors, work in your
underwear at home, and use any Macintosh that you want. Life is good in the
garage.

Given the explosion of large and niche social networking, social media and community sites, are we in an "attention bubble", or is supply simply keeping up with demand?

I'd say it the opposite way: demand is finally catching up to supply. There
were always these niche interests. Now with $12,000, WordPress, MySQL, and
Apache, demand can reach the supply.

What would be your perfect day?

"Get up in the morning at 7:00, see that Truemors has already gotten 25,000
page views, take the kids to school, come home and Truemor/blog for two
hours, play hockey at lunch, Truemor/blog for two hours, pick up kids, have
dinner with my wife and kids, go to the park with the family, come home and
watch 24, Boston Legal, The Unit, or Friday Night Lights with the family, go
to sleep. As I said, I'm a simple person.