What successful rural-sourced Internet companies are out there? That would make for an interesting discussion and analysis.

The Boston Globe article is typical of its one-sided poor journalism and is not a “well researched story” but a narrow one that misses answering its own question.

Instead, it was well done and well written in the areas it addressed. It missed however, in my opnion, a critical aspect of the story of which the title asks. And I will stand by that. It is the Boston Globe’s inherit bias that allows it to miss the critical political/economic aspect as to why businessess leave Boston.

He said for instance:

So even if Boston didn’t end up as Facebook’s home base, there are plenty of companies here now developing applications for it. Needham-based TripAdvisor, Inc. offers a world map that you can stick virtual pushpins in, to show your friends where you’ve been.

and

Could Facebook have succeeded if it had gotten an investment locally before Zuckerberg & Co. went West, and kept its headquarters here?

When I put that question to Accel Partners’ Breyer, who is a native of Natick, he had a one-word answer: no.

So, I think my comments still hold water. The question the author fails to andress is not why people are “attracted” to other locales but why they would not want to “stay” or “come” to Boston in the first place to do buisness. That is the bigger question of which the author failed to address.

I don’t know for a fact that this was the case here, but it’s quite possible.

Regarding the local issues you bring up in Boston/Massachusetts, I have never lived there so I can neither agree nor have a basis to disagree with your comments.

WIB is an interesting story. Launched on June 8th, they already have 2.9M Facebook users. They also just annonced a beta on MySpace.

They are located in Philadelphia and plan to stay there. I also linked to my earlier story on AltaVista and Napster, two companies that started in Boston but moved to Silicon Valley. I was part of the management team at both companies.

They failed to answer their own question because they chose to ignore the realities before them. Massachusetts is nick named Taxassachusetts for a profound reason. Pro business Mitt Romney, a republican, was chosen to run for the governorship in an attempt to stem the tide of this excessive anti-business pro tax environment where companies were leaving at a pace unimaginable. How effective he was in that is another subject. What is clear is that numerous Boston based giants such as Fleet Bank, John Hancock, Gillette and the Atlantic Monthly (est. 1857) have all “fled!”

Residents are leaving Mass. en mass as well for the very same reasons. For instance:

According to U.S. Census Bureau statistics released last summer, Massachusetts is continuing to hemorrhage people — especially young people. The census found that Massachusetts had an average annual exodus, on balance, of 42,402 people.

The population drop in Boston is consistent with the decrease on the state level. Of all the nation’s major cities studied, Boston had the third largest decline. The statistics showed that since 2000, the city has lost more than 30,000 residents, a 5.1 percent decrease.

http://www.baystatebanner.com/issues/2007/02/15/news/news02150705.htm

People also wrongly assume that Boston’s death grip on the Ivy League delivers the area a deep pool of quality candidates. The realities are those students are not commuters (locals) to MIT and Harvard and most leave. They are by their very nature transient. And Boston as wonderful a city as it can be, also tends to leave a bad taste in ones mouth when unaccustomed to the consequences of its political system and its impact on all facets of life and business.

Recognizing this environment we can better understand the sociological, anthropological, political and economic reasons people and business have been fleeing Mass. for a long time.

Following a venture capitalist’s chance meetings, mis-steps and missed opprotunites certainly adds to the incredible story of Facebook, but unquestionably misses the greater picture.

The better question would have been “Why Would Any Business Stay in Massachusetts?” That is a question I promise you, the Boston Globe does not want to answer.

Yet we are distracted by other tomfoolery. I note this uninteresting comment in the article:

“There was a question about whether we on the East Coast side were going to lead an investment with a sophomore in college who was considering a move to the West,” says the senior associate.

One, that sophomore in college was from New York and had little reason before him to stay in Boston. Two, what difference does it matter to these investers that he was heading west? Were they intending to run the day to day operations? That is a lame excuse in my opinion especially to investors in the information super highway.

But more to the point is when Battery Ventures’ Scott Tobin says:

“Folks in the Valley are incredibly geo-centric to a point of snobbery…”

I almost spit my drink across the screen! Surely you jest. Snobbery? The Valley is geo-centric–so what? It appears to deliver many valuable technologies few others do. Which business environment isn’t though geo-centric or snobbery? New York or Boston? My word, give me a break.

Boston’s “geo-centricity” is wrapped in an anti-business, pro tax, liberal Chinese finger torture trap and that along with some sunny skies in the west may be enough for some to leave.

I’m just sayin’

Thanks for stopping by, you’re always a welcome guest.

I should have the story done later today. I will provide a link to post here in another comment.

Thanks for the “tag”.

Don