Former.ly: Chapter Six (Second Draft) (Excerpt)
On the second Sunday of December, we hit a major milestone – 50 million registrations, as well as our 11,000th death. Flick sent me an IM to tell me that she’d been summoned to the brand new office; even though it was the weekend, she was keen to get things started. Sarah was out of the house and I needed to shift some code, so I said I’d meet her there.
Ten minutes after agreeing to meet Flick, I was descending an escalator towards the Central Line with my laptop tucked under my arm, because Sarah took my rucksack to take her clothes to the gym. I hate the tube – it’s dark and it’s dirty, too full of sweaty commuters. Luckily, the commuter crowd disperses over the weekend – if you see someone working on their laptop on the tube on a Saturday, they’re either self-employed or they work for a start-up.
I got off the tube at Tottenham Court Road and felt glad to be back in the sunlight, even though it was bitterly cold. Luckily, the new office wasn’t far away – I dodged through the milling crowd past a news booth, cut across the busy road and walked beneath the bridge towards Denmark Street, the only place in the world that makes me want to learn to play the sitar. Former.ly’s new offices were on a small road to the back of it, on the second floor of a dilapidated old building which was ultra-modern as soon as you stepped over the threshold. The new office was clean and empty, but there was still a vibe about the place that reminded me of the old ‘office’ in the living room of John and Kerry’s flat.
Unsurprisingly, Flick was already there when I arrived – likewise, John and Abhi were at their desks, but Kerry, Peter and the two new interns were right where they should be, enjoying whatever they did in their free time. Me? I don’t have a life, and I’m fine with that – my mind rebels at stagnation, give me work! Give me problems! Give me a server on a Saturday and I’m like a kid in a high-tech playground.
“So what’s the plan of attack?” I asked, as soon as Flick got off the phone. Her desk was the only desk in the office that looked lived in – she’d even brought in an aspidistra and some framed pictures of her friends, and she’d turned an old server case into a rudimentary filing cabinet, with old scarves draped around it for decoration. It sounds crazy and it was, but it actually looked pretty cool. She smiled and licked her lips – when she talked about PR and marketing, her eyes lit up like lighthouses when the boats come home.
“Well,” she said. “That’s the thing, isn’t it? I don’t know yet. All I know is that I’ve got four days to get as many journalists to come here as possible – any ideas are more than welcome.”
“Free beer should do it.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Flick laughed. “I doubt that John would sign it off, though.” The founder, who’d been listening to our conversation whilst working on a presentation for potential investors, looked up from his screen.
“That’s fine by me,” he said. “Just do what it takes – it’s time for us to hit the big leagues, and it’s time for you to earn your keep. We’re ready to go international – we’ve got good growth in most of the Western world, but that’s not enough. We’re starting with Chinese – we’re still below the radar of the government, so we’ll open up now to make the most of it before they raise that damn firewall and ban us because we’re not Baidu.”
“So much for free speech,” said Flick.
“They won’t ignore us for long,” John continued. “But it’d be good to get a foothold, if we can. They can’t censor the internet forever, and we’ll be right there when they lift the filter. Next, we look to Asia – Abhi is chipping in some overtime to work on the translations, and we’re looking for another developer to help him launch the new languages.”
“Let me see the list of translations when you can, boss,” said Flick. “I’ve got an idea.”
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