This blog chronicles the trials and tribulations of three longtime friends who are trying to start an Internet music company called Jamseed. All three have day jobs, all have failed in the past with new ventures, and all hope that this company will bring them entrepreneurial redemption.

For Jamseed we want both a website and a Facebook application. But which first? For fans to support musicians should we build on Facebook’s platform and thereby leverage their existing profiles and infrastructure—like Scrabulous? Or should we have our own web site to avoid being tied to a given social network?

If World Wide Wicket (my daytime employer) wanted to answer this question, they would dispatch analysts, gather data, survey customers, and build a PowerPoint deck as thick as the padding on a Barcalounger. But World Wide wouldn’t be relying on volunteers -- students, Steve and Rose, and their professor, Shannon -- to build the beta before the end of summer.

“Actually, I’m on vacation all August,” Rose said when we met in person.

“And I’m out a week in June,” Steve Wozniak said (apparently his parents didn’t know about Apple’s co-founder).

At that moment, I felt the leaden stomach butterflies that signal the familiar down-dip of the roller coaster of entrepreneurial emotions. It happens every time you think you’re going in one direction (discussing features and functions) and end up in another (discussing schedule limitations).

And then I got a little up-tick as I learned that the students are, as promised, wicked smart. When I sat down at Rose’s computer to type a web address, I got “,,,”

“She uses Dvorak,” Steve said, referring to the keyboard layout designed in the 1930’s to replace the standard QWERTY system.

But they keys aren’t labeled any different.

“I just remember them,” she said.

Steve proved to be just as sharp. And, aside from his moniker (“I got a discount at the store for having a “cool name”), he’s also a musician—our target audience.

Over the next hour, I learned from them in ways that World Wide wouldn’t have.

“There’s a group with a million-plus users saying they want to prevent the sending of Facebook apps. Besides, Facebook is really just for stalking people.” (Rose at her Dvorak keyboard.)

“Most of our fans come to us through MySpace. And for me to attract new fans with an app, they’d have to sign up for Facebook.” (Mr. Wozniak)

And so I accepted their desire to have a site first—knowing that schedule limitations likely mean we won’t have the Facebook app this summer. But I kept that to myself as we sat down to pizza because the roller coaster was headed up, and I wanted to keep it that way for just a little bit longer.

What do you think? Should we rely on the marketing muscle of a larger company like Facebook or go it on our own first?