There was a time not so long ago when the conventional wisdom in the world of tech revolved around youth above all else. If you look back a decade to the dot-com bubble you'll see many companies whose management philosophy revolved largely around the belief that youth and inexperience were a key ingredient required for a successful tech startup. We now know that this philosophy was extremely flawed.  Age and experience do count for something when running a business. And anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool.

Fast forward to this week when I decided, for better or worse, weigh in on a very small controversy about a site called Teens In Tech. Teens In Tech is a WordPress MU powered group blog started by a teenager named Daniel Brusilovsky. I knew about Teens In Tech because it has received coverage on TechCrunch. Teens In Tech, according to TechCrunch, is a "startup...with a board of advisers that includes Robert Scoble and Loic Le Meur." Some pretty heavy hitters there as far as advisors go. More recently Daniel announced the addition of  a person named Louis Gray to his Board of Advisors. So we've got a startup covered by TechCrunch, a heavy hitting Board of Advisors and a young man with big dreams for his company. Could be a recipe for great success...or not. I took a look at it when I first heard about the site and I wasn't impressed. It was a standard WordPress MU install with very little content. Then I forgot about it.

In any case a blog post surfaced this week on a site called Net News Daily indicating that Teens In Tech had been hacked revealing in the process that activity on the site was quite anemic with something like 400 users, 150 of which didn't appear to be active. The writer of the article thought that didn't square with Daniel's assertion of "10,000 regular subscribers" to Teens In Tech on a YouTube video interview. I took a stroll over to the Teens In Tech site to see what was up and really didn't like what I saw. As I perused the site I noticed the lack of content, an "advertise with us" banner that links to the home page and just a general lack of community. Knowing that it was up to a 15-year old to maintain the site I could understand it. I was 15 once, trying all sorts of things with the limited computer technology that was available then. But then again I didn't call myself a CEO and I didn't have a board of advisors made up of the top Silicon Valley tech bloggers. I wondered what role the advisors played in the current state of the site.

I wondered if the advisors were actually advising young Daniel on the ways to do things right on the web. I wondered if such advice was being dispensed whether or not Daniel was listening. Or perhaps he hasn't had the time to bring the site up to speed. I know how that goes since I run a couple of active communities, plus produce blogs and podcasts myself. Then again I don't call myself a CEO. And I haven't recently announced the acquisition of YouthBloggers.net and the launch of Teens In Tech Networks. I was dumbfounded by the lack of substance at almost every turn. Daniel was involved with the Teens In Tech Conference in early 2009 which appeared to go off quite well. But I couldn't find anything new. Media companies (with a CEO, CFO and Board of Advisors), you would imagine, should be producing media on a pretty regular basis. Something did not appear right to me.

All the hoopla about a media network, a 15-year old CEO, a Board of Advisors, TechCrunch coverage, etc. didn't really amount to much. The signal to noise ratio is very poor here...just like a thousand other web "startups" that claim to be companies that are really glorified hobbies. There's nothing wrong with a kid having a hobby or wanting to be a tech entrepreneur but it seems to me that this isn't the right way to do it. If you're going to call yourself a CEO then you should have a legitimate, transparent and substantial organization beneath you. If you're going to call yourself a media network then I should be able to find plenty of media produced by that network without a whole lot of effort. I'm sorry but I can't find the media save for a personal Twitter account and a Facebook group with 14 members. Daniel does produce a podcast called Apple Universe Podcast but that isn't even linked from the Teens In Tech site. The podcast appears to be the most professional thing he has going on a regular basis. Why isn't that out front?

I think there are a lot of mistakes being made in this situation. It appears to me that a premium is being put on creating the illusion of a grande media network instead of building something organically. For all the hype there is little substance. That's not a good thing. I'll take one well produced podcast over a media network with no media any day of the week. All these websites, announcements, titles don't amount to a hill of beans unless you are regularly producing quality content and building solid community. If it hasn't happened already then Daniel's advisors need to step up and get that point across. The habits and attitude that Daniel (and all young entrepreneurs) develop in their teenage years will either doom them or set them up for success. Unfortunately many of the habits of the Silicon Valley Twitterati are poor ones. They are focused on getting attention and hard selling goods that don't live up to their promises. Do one thing well. Be modest. Focus. Engage one person at a time to build a solid community. Then you can start talking about building a media empire.

These types of lessons tend not to go over so well in the place I like to call Silly-con Valley. There's too much hard sell and not enough substance out there. And it's easy to get caught in the tractor beam with all the press events, conferences, parties and the money you hear about on the tech blogs. Too many people are chasing something that doesn't exist instead of building something meaningful. So while I think that Daniel and other young entrepreneurs are talented I also caution not to fall into the smoke and mirrors marketing culture of startup land. Because for every YouTube there are a thousand PodTechs.

Some have suggested that I don't have the authority to mete out advice about what is right or wrong with a web based media network? After all I'm not part of that culture. That's the problem with the startup crowd though. They think they know everything because they're friends with a guy who used to work for a company that got a post on TechCrunch last year. I've done plenty in the world of online media. The people who I have helped know what I've done. My podcasts have been downloaded more than 1.6 million times. Marriott reached out to me because they noticed my Red Room Chronicles blog, which was one of the first (it may have been the first) blogs ever to focus on a single hotel chain. Shortly thereafter Marriott Chairman Bill Marriott launched his own blog. I worked with Todd Cochrane and RawVoice for a year helping with marketing podcasts and building community. During that time I produced an event called Blubrry Jam to raise money for Cystic Fibrosis. I manage a pair of active online communites, I Heart Mets (a social sports site) and Learn By The Drop (a Drupal learning site). I'm also currently working my way towards a Masters of Business Administration. I could go on but this post is getting too long.

Young people are smart. They know a lot but they still need help. Let's show 'em how to do it right.

I know what's coming after this post goes up. I've talked about how the blogging culture works before. If Infantry Basic Training, Officer Candidate School and life inside a tank didn't break me then some blogger in a shoebox apartment in San Francisco sure won't.