In May 2007 I wrote “Times are good, money is flowing, and Silicon Valley sucks” in a post about how, in my opinion, Silicon Valley was ripe for a downturn.
This week, without any doubt, we got that downturn. It was different from the last downturn in that it wasn’t driven by the crazy bullishness of Silicon Valley venture capitalists and investment banks. This time, Wall Street and our government screwed everything up all on their own while we minded our own business and acquired our own instead of going public at crazy valuations.
So what exactly just ended? Easy capital to start. And that means already funded companies are going to tighten their belts in a big way, per the request/demand of venture capitalists like Sequoia Capital, Benchmark Capital and Ron Conway.
The first to go will be the bulging marketing and communications departments at all those startups - the very people who make Silicon Valley such a nasty place to be in the boom times. But as the number of startups dwindle, it won’t be so hard for them to get attention from press and users, so those marketing and PR flaks won’t be missed all that much (of course, the people without jobs won’t be happy).
We’ll look back in later years and think of this most recent boom as the Web 2.0 period, when we were wowed by the magic of user generated content, copyright violations on a massive scale, and neat little widgety things that used Javascript and Flash to turn web pages into pretty close equivalents to the old desktop apps. Of course there were other evolutions as well. Advertising technology has advanced steadily, particularly in tailoring ads to an individuals needs, and tracking them properly. This is the period that social networking as we think of it today was born, and we’ll never be rid of it in our lifetimes.
So why the use of the word ignoble in the title? Well, all this went down at an unfortunate time for a score of Silicon Valley posterboys and girls as they partied 1999 style “the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in October of 2008 for a week of reflections on life, love, and the Internet.” They leave behind an absurd video that would have gone unnoticed a month ago. But this week, with the walls tumbling down, they look like a bunch of jackasses who have no idea what’s going on back at home. And this video will always be associated with the end of Web 2.0.
Goodbye, Web 2.0. I hope I never have to type those words again. Now can we please get back to work? There’s still a ton left to do before we get to Matrix-style virtual reality, the Singularity, and mobile phones with batteries that last a whole day.
It is possible that the downturn in the economy wont kill Web 2.0 - it will help accellerate the evolution to Web 3.0.
We are talking about the survival of the fittest from the most brilliant youths in the world.
Brilliance, creativity, idealism and passion are such strong attributes that they will be agile what ever becomes of the economy.
This may evolve into a force that makes the business world and global communication more efficient and more geared towards continuous free flow of ideas.
The creme will always rise to the top to be the creme de la creme.
The impactful and powerful minds wont rest - they will constantly create and the best ideas will take off and become disruptive and revolutionary.
Good call unidentified person. Like your services listing. I too believe this is merely a removal of the training wheels and technology will just need to be authentic. Real technology stands alone as a contributor to our status quo. Those of us creating new systems are in a positive situation. It is very difficult to turn the participant away from an established brand unless that brand becomes suddenly and dramatically inadequate for their true situation. Bringing together the best minds as you said, truly free systems and sociological forms will arise into the gap of those unprepared for technology being “human quality” in every way. I think we are just leaving the warm-up and orientation time. We go from automatic transmission to manual transmission is all. //de
there is an apex of innovation upon us.
in 5 years there will not be any “start-ups”. There will only be “start-Ins.”
People and businesses postitioning themselves with established vertical location based niche players.
http://seesmic.com/videos/Q7B9X13aTE
MemorialLocator.com- Prepare Yourself
my god, please ban this guy, its just gets worse
web 2.0 never really existed. it was a fashionable term that bloggers created so they could have one more thing to blog about, one more hook to reel in a few more visitors with their trashy pseudo-analysis, to get a couple more bucks from their advertising.
God darn it and I was about to create a startup. Oh well, back to my 8-7 job. woot!
Actually, I was thinking of how we might actually be able to simmer with stable productivity tools over the coming years that have less of a breakneck approach to version upgrade paths. Hi, please stop trying to be Facebook clones and do something original and useful that has either a funding vehicle or enough open source passion to not be orphaned after a nice cut at version 0.9.
The Web 2.0 years have been often meant traditional MIS/IT oriented individuals were dragged or resorted to evaluation over true application in many cases with rushes to sign up for this that and the other. Imagine the cycles of activity when you are able to harness all that energy to, oh I dunno… running a business?
Getting everyone on a team in the past was harder — perhaps now a tool can really rip through the company and make impact sooner. Let’s hope so.
Let’s also hope bigger impact players in the market gobble up all the deals to be had in the productivity tools space. Perhaps the collective productivity of the knowledge workforce becomes less scatterbrained as a result.
Everyone go out there, steal the best ideas, mash it up (or whatever these kids call it now), add a unique flavor to it, price it to survive. Seriously.
And if anything, I like to think that Web 2.0 was dead on arrival since it tended to be the 1970s puke green appliance motif that was distinctive but that after a few years, nobody really cared since it was just an appliance.
http://radar.oreilly.com/archi.....overs.html
I just hope Web 5.6 is never ever coined. Seriously.
Goodbye, Web 2.0? so whats next? web 3.0?
Web 7!
(in line with Microsoft’s announcement Windows next-generation replacement will be called Windows 7, skipping Windows 4, 5 and 6.)
Ba-zing!
Cheers,
Doug
brilliant - what a bunch of idiots!
Why do you say that? They’re just some 20-something kids having fun on vacation. Though I don’t know for sure, I don’t think any of them got rich laundering crappy securities to unsuspecting investors. And I’m 100% sure they weren’t doing this on their employers dime or time.
If you’re trying to latch onto a poster child for the egregious behavior directly related to the financial meltdown, it’s not in Cyprus. It’s in New York.
Agreed and Agreed.
Silly video aside, I find it much more depressing that they are who we point to as the closing chapter. Whereas celebration of Web 1.0 involved fancy champagne, strippers, ice sculptures, kids of Web 2.0 has a fancy house with a pool in Cyprus.
The good thing about Web 2.0 is that it is a less technology than a set of mind :It didn’t needed to be located somewhere. So the valley can burry web 2.0, there’s plenty of so-called copycats with steady economy that are still there and very ready to go Broad band…
I don’t think you can equate economic downturns with the death of Web2.0. Maybe the hype surrounding social media but as long as users are generating their own content and sharing it online, Web 2.0 is alive. Users don’t need huge marketing departments or fancy parties to blog or share videos.
You might be right on a corporate level but culturally, Web2.0 is still thriving.
That’s retarded.
I think that could be said for your comment.
No. It’s not as bad as your retardation.
Isn’t recess over?
as long as users are generating their own content and sharing it online, Web 2.0 is alive…. thats retarded
I agree. Please call myspace and facebook to let them know their websites are no longer viable in the post web 2.0 world.
AM we really missed you - michael if she leaves again just add her to your payroll
I agree with Liz - on my definition, Mr Arrington is proclaiming the end of something more specific, this being the silicon start-up culture existing around the democratisation of the Internet, epitomised by the playful creativity and inescapable self-satisfaction of the lip dub video.
Web 2.0 was not the evolution of the Internet, but a correction. Following the initial surge of traditional businesses trying to bend the medium to their wills, approaching it as a traditional advertising or broadcasting medium (and one that they could hope to ‘own’, with an audience they could wilfully manipulate), Web 2.0 has seen the initiative taken back by the netroots, of which Michael is, or at least once was, ironically one. This is not a trend that will be reversed, and we are by no means finished.
You took the words right out of my mouth Dan. I say “blah, blah, blah” to this post! Everyone’s been looking for another chance to say ‘the bubble’s burst’, this ‘fill-in-buzzword’ is dead, etc. - as if there’s some invisible line that stops one thing and starts another. The web, as any business, has always been an ebb-and-flow, good companies coming, bad or unstable companies going and then it happens again.
Why don’t we focus on solid, basic business strategies, just like any other industry, and things will be fine.
Quite read Liz. As long as people participate, contribute and collaborate Web 2.0 will be functioning. If there is a clear out of companies that have jumped on the Web 2.0 bandwagon it will probable be a good thing anyway.
Alaska Miller’s comment is in very poor taste.
Cheers
John
Mike,
I don’t agree with you here. Web 2.0 is not RIP yet, in fact I may want to argue that this is a great opportunity here for companies like mine to help larger companies survive this downturn. There will be many companies to go under now, but I also think that this is the perfect time for us to shine. Maybe Web 2.0 (consumer companies) will supper a bit more than E2.0 or may be the other way around since large firms will have to cut their IT budgets, but we are a lot more flexible to make good deals vs. what IBM, MSFT, EMC or Oracle will be able to do. So, if I am a large bank or consulting firm and I know that I need to cut cost, yet I need to innovate and offer better collaboration and communications with my clients, partners and employees, maybe I should go and buy a $50K E2.0 server from a small startup vs $500K solution (or $5M) from the big guys. Not to mention that the offerings wt this point from smaller companies like Blogtronix are superior to what MSFT, IBM or EMC have 9EMC does not even have a product yet).
So, I don’t think that this will be the end here. I would worry if I were you as your rev is made from the same marketing $ that you talk about above
Cheers and good luck to all fellow entrepreneurs out there. As I posted in my other comment, I just landed in NYC for my VC meeting of the week and you can image what we will be talking today about.
Vassil
I agree with all of your points.
My company just got a bundle of VC money YESTERDAY…so, I don’t think the end of 2.0 is upon us.
They’re just a bunch of kids fooling around. What has this got to do with anything?
Are we all supposed to walk around with black armbands on or something?
Mike, this is ridiculous. I’m sorry but VC’s , angels, etc. are still going to be hedging their bets on what is next, whether or not the companies they are looking at have revenue or not. These VC’s are merely telling people to slow their burn rate, try and create revenue if possible and just keep things steady while the government sorts through its incompetent bullshit and things start settling. VC’s last week were saying everything is all good and this is their time to shine. Now, because B ofA downgrades display advertising, Google yanks back their earnings, Apple gets shorted on retail and Yahoo continues to suck, we all start to suffer? Sequoia is one of the few VC’s that has a major interest in public finance (Goole, Apple, Yahoo, and more). This downturn economy is hurting their fund, however the rest of the intelligent VC’s who don’t have public interest will still be investing, and obviously will reccomend to startups that they spend less money on ping pong tables, PR and beer bongs and more on real business opportunies that let them move through the crisis without the need to try and raise another round of financing. For everyone to call it quits right now is ignorance. Yes, many of the strartups out there don’t deserve to live until tomorrow because they aren’t innovative, well recieved,profitable and just plain dumb, but the saavy investors who have a good tank and don’t rely on Joe Public are going to stick with it. I just don’t buy into this Web 2.0 is done. Web 2.0 is not Pets.com remix. It is innovation and it is not a phase, it’s still testing grounds for the future ahead.
dude.. you really don’t get it–do you?
VCs will be very reluctant to invest in any new companies, since they’ll need the cash to prop up their existing portfolio. Also, with a possible 3-5 year recession, most start ups will be reluctant to have an IPO, and large companies won’t do M&A, since they’ll need to control their burn rate, and cash reserves. Few exit windows for new start ups, means no funding; and without funding, ideas, by in large, won’t get executed.
Good luck with trying to bootstrap starting your company, and getting loans from family, friends, and neighbours in a protracted recession.
“PR Flaks” - Such negativity Michael :).
Oh Michael,
Don’t be such a misery.
It was fun (for some) while it lasted and very entertaining for us to watch (from the outside).
Been in this industry for 14 years, saw all the dot com bust. It was strange to watch it all build up and then implode.
Still it was nice to see all the idiots leave back then and it will be nice to seem them go this time. The rest of us can get on with building our sites and applications without all the noise. We can concentrate on users and customers - and not trying to be the nice tech-god.
All the bullshitters will go and people who want to build something useful and lasting will be left. I am looking forward to the smell of fresh air.
Ok, so selling to Google is probably no longer an option, so working away for years to come building something is - great, love it.
TC will still be here and people will still read it.
As for the video - enjoy it as the last dance as the ship went down.
Don’t begrudge people the last dance.
P
What @davey said.
From Alley Insider: “Among the boldfaced names featured in the clip: Facebook Connect dude Dave Morin, his Google girlfriend Brittany Bohnet, Facebook product design lead/former Macster developer Aaron Sittig, Apple producer/designer Jessica Bigarel, WSJ tech reporter Jessica Vascellaro, Drop.io founder Sam Lessin, Blip.tv cofounder Mike Hudack.”
These people should be permanently blacklisted from employment or funding - if not for being like Nero fiddling while Rome is burning, then for being stupid enough to be caught on video acting like douchebags, economic crisis or not.
Whichever way you look at it, we are entering a new phase.
For one thing, websites that don’t generate revenue (and bottom-line profit) - or at least have a sound strategy to do so - won’t fetch some of the mind-boggling valuations we have seen in recent times; nor will they easily be able to raise huge rounds of funding moving forward.
Bright ideas will need to be backed up by solid monetisation strategies. Anyone involved in start-up company should be focusing on the line item in the business plan entitled: “income” - something that may have been lacking in the sweetspot of the Web 2.0 era.
seems to be the right time for us to enter the bay
I am not sure that “Web 2.0″ is the correct label to give the myriad startups that have leaped onto a bandwagon with low sides and no idea of where its heading (incidentally, I share the view that the bandwagon came from Dot Com Boom and is headed for its twin town of Dot Com Bust). Web 2.0 will live on, because it’s a better web for everyone, but the current storm will hopefully weed out those who started flaky “businesses” chasing a dream which recent history (see 8 years ago) has shown is just that.
Frankly, as neat as some of these ideas may seem, they are not neat enough to rewrite the rules of economics. If you aren’t making money, you don’t have a business, pure and simple. Assuming that VCs make it through the bad times effecting us all, they don’t have infinite cash supplies. That the founders of Facebook and Twitter are saying they aren’t interested in revenues is comical; that both have hundreds, or thousands, of developers with “businesses” that add features to something no-one wants to pay for in the first place feels like a house of cards that could collapse as soon as the Next Big Thing comes along. That’s if spiralling costs and no income haven’t got the first.
There are a lot of deluded people in The Valley and surely if current economic woes aren’t enough to re-attach them to reality then hospitalisation is the only option!
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
absolutely. absolutely. Memo to silicon valley 90210 - take Michael Porter to read by the pool. Economics and business models have nothing to do with credit crunchs, technology or venture capital. It’s to do with products and customers. If you don’t a product that anyone will PAY you for you don’t have a business, however kewl it is.
No such internationally recognized country as “the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus”. This is an occupied territory as deemed by the UN and the USA and only recognized by one country, Turkey. I think your title is a little off.
Indeed there is no such internationally recognized country as “the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus”. You might need to consider a minor update to the article (people might get confused about the status of international affairs).
Please refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Cyprus for further details.
(sth similar is happening with South Ossetia)
Look at the right part of Cyprus:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyprus
Taiwan isn’t recognized by the U.S. or UN either. Does that mean it isn’t a real country?
Hi Mike,
I read you everyday and can say that you have a pretty good insight from our sector.
But when you say:
“The first to go will be the bulging marketing and communications departments at all those startups - the very people who make Silicon Valley such a nasty place to be in the boom times. But as the number of startups dwindle, it won’t be so hard for them to get attention from press and users, so those marketing and PR flaks won’t be missed all that much (of course, the people without jobs won’t be happy).”
It is a sad cliché that you are fueling. Above all when one knows that performance online marketing is decisive to generate revenue while controlling costs. I work in performance online marketing and i don’t think I am pretentious if I don’t consider myself like a “marketing flak”, but like a revenue generator for online businesses.
So maybe you should re-evaluate what you say, instead of putting everyone in the same bag.
I know that a lot of parasites took advantage of the boom era to get well-paid positions for their lack of performance or impact in the business of Hich Tech start-ups, but this is not the case of online marketing managers who are tighly controlled from the management on revenue goals achievement and CPA targets.
So that maybe you should not throw out the baby with the bath water.
Above all when we know that it is precisely at this time when companies are reviewing the marketing budgets, that the best deals can be closed.
Also it is not easy for an online marketer to suffer the consequences of mismanagement when it took him or her so many years to build a profitable business.
And this is not theory or about writing a funny blog post. This is harsh reality.
Just my 2 cents.
I agree. Web 2.0 is dead.
The Instanet is Now.
Inlocator killed the internet.
please stop locator dude, ur wares are shit and ur talk crap, please i beg you to stop ur insane dribble
inlocator would only “Kill the internet” if and a big if, your “locator cluster fuck” was the only means to locate things…. That would be the death of the internet, because you can’t locate anything using your service making it a true cluster fuck….
Agree to one post above. No-nonsense businesses will survive despite these downturns. Does think think Facebook is going to wipe out all of sudden? Chhhi. Then how can web 2.0 would die? Nonsense talk, this is. Ask these experts to keep their nose normal..or shut it completely. Markets are a lot smarter than all experts taken together… accept it.
seriously? a ONE SHOT vacation video deserves all this bile & vitriol?
scuse me, but do you folks remember who created this god awful mess?
it WASN’T facebook or startups or silicon valley… it was loose credit / monetary policy by the fed, and greed & overreach by wall street, insurance companies, and other global finance players.
people on vacation in cyprus need to get a clue?
kettle, BLACK.
Spot on Dave. I’d also add that this is post is just typical Valley-centric mentality that the rest of us in the U.S. and the world now take with aspirin and huge grain if salt. Really just a “drive traffic” post…..
So, you are trying to damage people for the rest of their professional lives for having some fun during a holiday (which was probably booked and paid 6 months ago). Not to mention that 20 people sharing a home in Northern Cyprus is probably cheaper then staying at home in NYC or Silicon Valley.
Are you out of your minds? What have they done to you?
Wake up to the reality that even in hard times people will still go on holiday, young people will still have fun, life actually goes on, and thank god for that or we would never see the end of an economic downturn.
Defenstrator - go wear a sack cloth and flagellate yourself in the streets - it will really help your future employment, but stop trying to damage other people.
Maybe it was just a fun little trip. All those hip white kids. Somewhere in Cyprus, away from the perpetual conflict between the Greeks and the Turks. Way away from the realities of their companies and the people in them struggling to adapt to a market about to lose 40% of its value in a couple of weeks. I started up one company during the VR days, pre-Web, and all I remember was hard work, dinners of soup and salad, and maybe a reward at the end of the product tunnel. I would dare say, we moved the Matrix closer to reality than these icons of Web 2.0 moved the Web to become a truly useful, edifying medium.
lol … check this video out … - from the same chick. http://vimeo.com/1914729
Facebook dude is in it - the funniest company of them all. No business model, ad revenue that is falling like shit on a stick and to quote zuckerberg “we want to have 1000 employees by the end of 2008″ HAHA
1000 employees ? if you keep spending all your fking money in cyprus - you’ll be lucky to have any left
To be fair, FB didn’t spend any money in Cyprus. Except that those people work in “Web 2.0″ their companies/employers have nothing to do with it. They were all invited. Not really any VC cash (whatsoever) wasted there.
Blogging is so cool! This post should be copied and handed out in college so the future journalists see that blogging is indeed no threat to REAL journalism.
My point is, the video might be sort of inappropriate at this time, but in the end there is nothing wrong with going somewhere and spending your own money. The video is totally unrelated to a (possible) burst of the Web 2.0 bubble.
Bottom line, at this time you should be glad that some people still spend.
Instead, this post makes it sound like those kids wasted VC on a trip to Cyprus to make a video. Which is just not true.
I am not defending anyone in the video (HI SAM! AWESOME VIEW!), I mean, if you put stuff online (and make it public) you have to expect that people make fun of you (for whatever reason), but I feel like you shouldn’t make believe what is not there. But hey, since this is a blog, it only takes five minutes to write an entry and you don’t need to backup your claims and flame away.
Also, TC spearheading the Web 2.0 hype - it is hilarious that you people are the first to bitch about it. It just shows how little moral people have in general.
I remember a few weeks ago, your super-awesome conference awarded the first price to a Twitter-clone. So much for bubbles and the end of Web 2.0.
Yeah, that wasn’t VC money. That was THEIR money.
Haha.
I used to get into that argument with my parents all the time:
ME: “But it’s MY money!”
PARENTS: “You don’t have any money. It’s all OUR money.”
very good tr teller, how true
how do we view the video. vimeo says its a private video. thanks.
Also, Mike
1. less startups to cover, means less posts on TC or ?
2. 8 x $10K worth of advertising per month (minimum) - you yourself have said the first to go will be “bulging marketing and communications departments” - umm … they are the people you do business with ?
3. love a post on “YOUR HONEST” strategy for TC ? would be great and transparent to hear it
ok, fair enough. can we use this opportunity to start the guesses about the future? here goes
full deployment of internet technologies lags in the developing world (im not talking about china). with the cost of bandwidth declining (several planned new fiber cables for africa, for example) perhaps some of these technologies will go to making people’s lives better over there… or just to enable more video clip and song downloads at the very least !
look for more interesting stuff from other parts of the world as they seek to emulate silicon valley …
Like a many others, I don’t see the connection between Web 2.0, the video and our current economic situation. I could be wrong, but I don’t think is was Web 2.0 or the people in Cyprus that convinced mother’s of 2 kids earning $40,000 a year that they should/could buy a $300,000 home with no down-payment. Or, maybe I should be thankful of the end of the Web 2.0. I saved more than $10 on a tank of gas yesterday compared to a couple of months ago.
Surely I’m not to the only person our to the the complete Irony of this post.
Techcrunch bemoaning “web 2.0″. flash widgets and meaningless companys that do nothing.
You’re funniest post ever.
Web 2.0 technology will prevail and take us into the next generation - whatever that works out to be - I am sure the bedroom hackers and dorm kids are coding as we speak!
Mike is 100% correct about the death of Web 2.0 as a ‘brand’ (read band wagon, gimmick, fad, gold rush etc…).
Forget about the widget that tells me a friend in Japan just boiled an egg… I want a new eBay (remember the good old days!) and web services that I can actually do something with / benefit from. Who knows, I might even pay - so you don’t have to serve so many ads, um, Adsense units…!
“FadBook” that fancy internet phone book/ answer machine.
Where the hell is peter theil i would like to hear his genius on the situation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6IQ_FOCE6I
RIPlocator.com
Peter Theil is sitting in his mansion with Donald Rumsfeld and the other Neocons plotting wars, global dominance and other ways to ruin the world we live in.
I really enjoyed this specific article, especially the “getting back to work” paragraph. Indeed, much is left to do and innovation is not going to end. If it is the end of “Web 2.0″ or not, I do not know, but I hope it is - I never liked the term, nor the hype. Whenever I read the term Web 2.0 I always thought of it as an exploding bubble, at least as a term. Web apps will not change that drastically overnight, but it’s time we stop taking pride of the almost kitsch term because it used to be hot.
I do believe that obstacles are just opportunities for improvement and innovation, and this is what I see for the future of the web. The time is just right, now that the economy is troubled, for the business-vanilla part of the web to start sinking, and the brilliant minds with new ideas to float like cream. And I’m talking about really new ideas, not inventing the next (pretty useless) mash-up or social network.
Perhaps the next iteration of the multi-dimensional being we call “the Web” (I wouldn’t like to use the next version number) will be even more revolutionary than Web 2.0, in terms of penetration in our everyday lives. I believe that we are close to a verge that will transform the mixture of today’s web, mobile devices and services to something totally new.
So let’s get back to work, and to those of us who are choosing this era to start innovating, good luck!
The galleries are full of critics. They play no ball, they fight no fights. They make no mistakes because they attempt nothing. Down in the arena are the doers. They make mistakes because they try many things. The man who makes no mistakes lacks boldness and the spirit of adventure. He is the one who never tries anything. His is the brake on the wheel of progress. And yet it cannot be truly said he makes no mistakes, because his biggest mistake is the very fact that he tries nothing, does nothing, except criticize those who do things.
–Gen. David M. Shoup
I’m simpatico to that quote.
Have you read this post by Chris Kenton?
http://www.chriskenton.com/200.....ssion.html
He labels the economic downturn a transformation catalyst –> change!
“the role of disruption is to challenge the system and eliminate weaknesses–to burn out the deadwood and disease. Once that happens–assuming the system wasn’t so diseased that it collapses entirely–there’s an opportunity for reorganization and redevelopment, an advancement to a higher order of organization.”
A related and interesting read.
In a few years, a small team trying to come up with a web startup will be the today’s equivalent of trying to create overnight a small company that produces cars or TV-sets.
Any industry (actually, everything) has its life phases, and the web industry makes no difference. The economic strains will only fasten the transition from adolescence to adulthood, a transition that was never easy.
It’s kind of sad for all the web teenagers (or better said infants; speaking in actual time, the web teenagers are veterans), and, in a way, for the industry itself (it will gradually loose its raw enthusiastic energy and vivacity); but I guess it’s just the way things are.
Loud proclamations and anything carved in stone can, just as soon as they’re “spoken”/”written”, begin to fade and/or wash away.
IMHO, lack of $$ increases creativity, innovation and outrageous attempts with “stuff” that can become the beginning of that next circle.
No-thing lasts forever, except that which has true value - including you and me.
…and, the pendulum continues to swing - first this way, then other way.
What’s your next, best idea and how can you make it happen with little or no budget, “angels”, backing, funding, investors, grants, etc. — just an idea and — your ethical passion?
OMG we’re all going to diiiiieee! The global economy is going to come round to your house and stab you.
that made me laugh
Frank,
You may have missed my point here - that was, simply, that “economies” and “trends” and/or “the-next-’new’-idea” come and go. Sort of like a sifted out process.
And, if the fact that you’re going to die, too, (one day) is news to you, might I suggest you do a bit more research?
My question is - what are you going to contribute to our global community (rather than take from it) before that happens?
::taking virtual knife out of my back::
Well, I think the video is pretty cool, not trivial at all to do that with amateurs all in one take (or that’s what it seemed like). And maybe Web 2.0 is dead, but those kids will always have the memory of that trip to Cyprus, you can’t take that away.
Michael said…
Goodbye, Web 2.0. I hope I never have to type those words again.
Amen to that. Web is just web, period. Kennedy once said, that ask not what your web application is categorized as (web 1, web 2, web xxx), but ask what the web application can do for you.
finally something I can agree on that TechCrunch posts. The video was hilarious. We have been shooting behind the scenes video for three years waiting for the collapse - we are hoping it will make it to the theaters some day as truth is stranger than fiction — as I always say around the office ‘how can a bunch of people that were riding huffy bikes around their neighborhoods a few years ago all of a sudden think they are world class business people and technologists - this video will make a perfect edition to our file on the decline of the technology age.
Gee — isn’t possible when everyone thinks 2 weeks of news spells certain doom for years that they could be wrong?
A view from the fringes of the empire,
Inept and juvenile karaoke narcissism at a rent-a-paradise location does not make an epitath for a decade of unregulated greed fueled by arcane financial engineering and, to be a bit political about it, managed by (obviously) incompetent right wing religious.
Look for long lines at soup kitchens for real ‘end-of-era’ images. They alrady existed during the economic boom, imagine now and tomorrow.
Enough about laments, real people dont cry, they innovate.
I appologize for my English.
J
And that’s why, whenever you’re having a party in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, you ALWAYS invite Arrington.
I have to say, this video is clearly awesome, you are bashing it because you’re jealous! You sooo want to be Web2.0-ing it, especially with those ladies ;D
Just imagine what Web3.0 will be like!
Is it still considered prescient if you’ve been saying that the sky is falling for 2 years ?
“Wah! Wolf! Wah! Wolf!”
Michael, quick FYI— most mobile batteries last in excess of a day. The iPhone being the exception. If battery life is an issue to you, perhaps you would be better suited a Blackberry.
Brutal video, but RE “End to Web 2.0″? That depends on your definition of “Web 2.0.” To me it just means “person-to-person” kind of stuff instead of “business-to-consumer.” And person-to-person stuff (with a business model) is not going away. But, I totally hear you and agree if you are talking about the hype and “fund any team with (maybe) an idea for a neat feature (without a business model)” kind of stuff. Buh-bye.
This is all going to be very interesting watch unfold.
For me what the difference now from that of the Dot Com meltdown is that you can take the lessons learned from then and how in hindsight it was a great opportunity for the smaller player to hang in there and quietly build up a base.
The only exception to that rule is if you are in a startup right now with more than three people in it that has not figured out it’s RELIABLE revenue model. If you are in one of those then yes you need to be worried even if you have VC cash in the bank. Having VC money in the bank means that now more than ever, management is the VC’s bitch and they will have to do whatever it takes to make sure they don’t go under. If you are making money VC’s will cut you some slack - if you have a huge burn rate and no REAL revenue then all I can say is Ohhh Boy!
Some lessons that I learned from the Dot Com meltdown for the very small scrappy startup are as follows:
1) Make sure your wife has a solid job and you can live 100% off her salary;
Foster a Rambo mentality of survival at all costs within your team and talk about how you are worried but have faith in the team to survive;
2) Close down your fancy office and have everyone work from home, even if that means you need to break your lease - just walk away and have a yard sale with all the furniture;
3) Everyone has to take a massive pay cut and nobody should not get paid 1 cent more than your best programmer;
4) Figure out who amongst your staff are buying into the scale down program and who is not;
5) Those that have stayed beside you as you have cut back on everything and are still passionate - give them equity in the company;
6) Be realistic that the chance of raising your next round of funding is not even an option. If there is money out there that is willing to invest it will find you - don’t pay for the flight to NYC or SF so you can be told this face to face;
7) Look at your revenue model and devote all your efforts into making it the most it can be;
9) Show gratitude to those that leave your team and never burn a single bridge;
10) My last point is this - it always looks a lot a million times worse than it is - pretend that the sky is falling but know that you will get through to the other side.
That’s what I learned when I got schooled the last time.
Cheers - Eric
Timely article, Eyespot the first big name to die?
Those “kids” may have had fun, but by gathering they
They are clueless. They have
And web 2.0 is mostly BS. It does nothing to *really* affect people’s lives - I’m talking about health and health care, housing, transportation, energy. Are widgets and feeds life-changers?
I think most of the commenters here and the younger SV trendoids are in their own little bubble. But that’s nothing new. A tiny percentage of companies change the world. SV has its share. But celebrating Web 2.0 for itself is narcissistic.