So today I made a comment on an article written by Ben Dyer over on TechDrawl. Here it is;

Good grief. There are so many fundamental false assumptions in this article and the comments that I might have to start blogging again.

Guess I should have used a little smiley face or something.  As I said in a follow up comment, this was not meant to be mean spirited.  I have the utmost respect for Ben. I think we are good. At the heart of the comment it is that I do not believe a premise in the article to be true. I will explain below.

Yet, Atlanta remains on the sidelines even as the epicenter of consumer technology (and wealth creation) is expanding its Valley tentacles to include New York, Boulder, Chicago and Austin. And while Atlanta does have a strong gaming community, we are better known in consumer tech circles as the epicenter of brain drain.

Atlanta is not on the sidelines of consumer technology. There are over 100 startups in Atlanta focused on consumer driven technology. Some of them are externally funded. I am quite confident that someone will pick apart this list but eRollover, Generation Station, looxii, OpenStudy, PlayOn, RentWiki, ScoutMob, Twitpay, Vertical Acuity, and WorthPoint come to mind. Others such as BLiNQ, Regator, and Wavee are darn well self funded. Heck, Ben's is funded somehow from his article. While the list has not been made public, 25% of the companies that will be presenting at Venture Atlanta are consumer technology plays. I believe, that with unchanging general market conditions, you will see at least four Atlanta based consumer technology companies close venture rounds in the next six months.

And that is really the only issue I had with what Ben wrote. The comments are where the real action was.

Once again you ATDC guys show you don't get it. This city is not in the game.

I have seen hundreds of consumer technology players in Atlanta. Trust me. I get it.

You can't get BigCo mentorship from the Technology Ecosystem players like Apple or HP or Microsoft or Google or Intel or well any of them.

There is no place like the valley when it comes to a cluster of big tech companies but there are a few firms in Atlanta that are doing interesting consumer tech. AT&T Wireless, CNN, Coca-Cola, Cox, Home Depot, Newell, HowStuffWorks, S1, PGI, Turner, The Weather Channel, WebMD. You gotta make the effort to connect.

You certainly can't generate media buzz.

Twitpay.

And then of course personal attacks after the comment. They really don't bother me. Except for one.

Dismissing his assessment as "false assumptions" is to have lost the ability to listen to the warrior fighting the battle.

Hopefully if nothing else this post will explain what I meant by my comment. I listen to entrepreneurs everyday. I help entrepreneurs move their companies forward everyday. I lead a lot of activities beyond the scope of my day job to build a stronger consumer Internet technology community. Perhaps I have failed. I don't think so. Atlanta is a little bit better place to start a consumer tech company than it was four years ago. And I never ever stop listening to the market.

Best of luck to Ben in his new venture. I am confident that he will make the right decision for his company.