Failing Web 2.0 stars pray for copyright abolition - The Register
 

Couple very good reads here. I always like to read stuff outside our biz that is parallel to our issues.


Failing Web2.0 Stars pray for copyright abolition.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05...and_copyright/

This may be the funniest excerpt from the article.

(We also despaired that Web 2.0 failed to address any of the significant technical challenges of the day. Which, alas, has proved true - even after VCs have spunked $1.5bn of cash at the Javascript kiddies, we're no nearer to solving these problems. That's because Web 2.0 was "interface" level people trying to solve "infrastructure" level problems - which is a bit like supposing that a talent for painting garden gnomes qualifies you for designing skyscrapers that don't fall over.)

Heres another one from www.ft.com


Web 2.0 fails to produce cash

By Richard Waters and Chris Nuttall in San Francisco

Published: May 26 2008 19:18 | Last updated: May 26 2008 19:18

Many members of the Web 2.0 generation of internet companies have so far produced little in the way of revenue, despite bringing about some significant changes in online behavior, according to some of the entrepreneurs and financiers behind the movement.

The shortage of revenue among social networks, blogs and other ?social media? sites that put user-generated content and communications at their core has persisted despite more than four years of experimentation aimed at turning such sites into money-makers. Together with the US economic downturn and a shortage of initial public offerings, the failure has damped the mood in internet start-up circles.

?There is going to be a shake-out here in the next year or two? as many Web 2.0 companies disappear, said Roger Lee, a partner at Battery Ventures.

?These are challenging macro-economic conditions,? said Shawn Hardin, chief executive of Flock, a browser maker that raised $15m in venture capital last week.

Yet that has not stopped a continuing round of venture capital fundraising and acquisition activity at high valuations as investors and corporate acquirers hunt for businesses capable of rising above a crowded field.

?If you look at some of the valuations, you wonder what fantasy of revenues they?re based on,? said Mitchell Kertzman, a partner at Silicon Valley venture capital firm Hummer Winblad.

In one sign of the continued hopes for start-ups that have yet to alight on a solid business model, several financiers expressed support for the private fundraising being undertaken by Twitter, one of Silicon Valley?s most talked-about companies. The ?micro-blogging? service, whose users post messages no more than 140 characters long, has yet to find a way to make money, but its early adoption by a group of enthusiastic users is seen as a sign that it will eventually be successful.

Other recent venture capital deals have included fundraisings that have put valuations of about $500m each on Slide, a maker of ?widgets?, small applications that are carried on social networks, and Ning, a social networking platform founded by Marc Andreessen, a co-founder of browser maker Netscape.

Despite the slow start to money-making by Web 2.0 companies, the trend towards more social online behaviour that it embodies is widely claimed by insiders to be of lasting significance.

?The capabilities that are coming with Web 2.0 are very profound,? said Devin Wenig, head of the markets division of Thomson Reuters. ?The Valley is usually right, and it?s usually early.?

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

www.ft.com


-Discuss-

This is great!

"As it happens, I'm in favour of copyright reform too - but it's predicated on gathering more money for creators, not propping up serial business failures like ... Michael Arrington. So the next time you hear the ritualistic whining about the trouble copyright holders cause plucky internet startups, remember who really needs who."

LOL.

I called web 2.0 a failure almost 4 years ago.
Web 2.0 was all based on nothing new except the expansion of free media and community sites. All in all there really is not much money in free media and discussion forums.

It's great for the independent guys like Lensman for exampkle but the corner stone of a major corporation not gonan happen. Youtube is in deep shit, blogs and discussion forums is really chump change.

They never learn, this was the mantra during the first net boom.Everything will be free, ads will pay for everything and it failed and surprise it failed again.

web 2.0 is too confusing to me.

I invented Web 3.0.

web 2.0 is ass cake

Web 2.0 can be summarised by saying it is nothing more than streamlining of exhisting web technologies using reinvigorated investor money to flush down the toilet. Basically companies that were from Web 1.0 fine tuning of scripts were the winners while most other Web 2.0 companies that became winner's relied on blatant content theft such as Youtube.

Other than that Web 2.0 was nothing more than a catch phrase to get the attention of investors. Web 2.0 failed also because of open source projects. No money in open source projects such as PHP. Sure the guys that wrote PHP have a wide variety of scripts and new inventions one can imagine the value of PHP if it were an actual company taking license for its user base...

The same goes for Linux.

100% correct. During the first dot com bust it was suddenly realized that Ad revenue alone wasn't going to cut it for many companies. Web 2.0 has done nothing but train the user to expect it for free and streamline it so that getting it for free is easy and fast. And now they are shocked that people aren't paying attention to advertising? Duh. Even TV studios are worried because with DVRs and Tivo more and more people now skip the commercials and they are making less off the sale of them.

It seems like every 5-6 years the web has a flush and reinvents itself. I wonder what will be next.

Well just a question that comes to my mind, you may have 150 000 people signed up on your web 2.0. community site with profiles, but how many of them are actually:

a) active
b) monetizible / meaning you are capable of monetizing them or their behaviour
c) contribute ANYTHING interesting enough to make the others come back

I guess there is a very few community sites that are really consistent with this and that can deliver.

Well I admit I was a member of one local social community site for about 2 years, contributed mainly about music / movies / books etc.

After some time, there was literally NOTHING left to discuss, people were a little bit single dimensional in their views and those that I met personally dissapointed me even more.

I abandoned that like two years ago and haven't posted there ever since.

Good read. Thanks for posting.:thumbsup

Good thread let's hear more input