Open Thread!
Now that the Web 2.0 conference on Internet companies has come and gone, and at least a dozen start-ups have launched -- and the energy has been stuffed into us, and then sucked out again -- we're wondering where you think we stand. Most product introductions, as expected, were incremental. But what was the most significant development in your view? Or broader, what is the most exciting technology driving Silicon Valley innovation right now? Or any other random thoughts? Take it away. Please add a comment, and we will read it. This is the launch of the so-called open thread, a feature often used by our colleague, Dan Gillmor, to great effect. If it is useful, we will do more of them.
http://www.siliconbeat.com/cgi-bin/mt331/mt-tb.cgi/779
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Tracked: October 11, 2005 8:13 PM
The big takeaway for me here was the amount of energy and personal investment from entrepreneurs and notice from larger and more established companies.
Looks like the number of people using the web has reached a level where everyone involved sees a whole new ballgame -- with a lot of folks not only building products for people to use, but using people to help build the product.
I have to give it to Ross Mayfield on his quote "Web 2.0: It's made of people" -- Seems to be the dominant theme and meme here.
Chris Tolles on October 11, 2005 6:51 AMComment link
Agreed, cool technology and all. Again, how do you make money? Feels like its back to 1999 again. Til today, I still can't figure how Flickr, MySpace, Weblogs.com, etc. makes money.
John Diep on October 11, 2005 7:35 AMComment link
My takeaway? I keep hearing the same refrain - "Just start another bubble and I know what to do this time, and then I'll get rich."
We're heading towards another bubble - but it won't be like the first one. Everything from infrastructure to financial demands to talent will be different - smaller, more nimble - than 1999. Think about Vinod Khosla's observations - the more money, the less the success. The 1999 mindset isn't very 2005!
Lynne Greer Jolitz
Chief Technology Officer
ExecProducer / CoolClip Network
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The main differentiator between Web 2.0 and the previous 1.0 bubble is that the new companies today engage the consumer to participate. This new culture of participation invokes a much greater hold than just the culture of viewership. Any company internet or otherwise who is able to establish a relationship with the consumer will more than likely be able to make money.
Herbert
Founder and CEO
KudosWorks.com
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Haven't really seen any promising true standalone businesses in the bunch. A lot of what I'd qualify as Nifty Features, a few even making it to the Interesting Product stage, but no Rapid Growth World Changing Companies. I applaud the innovation, and do think some of these things could involve into big developments, but practically none seem to be on that road right now.
Though active, the universe of acquirers is a lot smaller than it used to be. What's the takeout for all of these four-figure revenue companies going to be?
Mitchel on October 11, 2005 9:40 AMComment link
agree with chris tolles. i'm excited by the level of participation - entrepreneurs, vc's, a very large community of tech focused bloggers and the newest entrants, large web players.
i will say however that we're not totally there yet. we're headed toward a better ecosystem where we realize that we're all better off working together. before publicly launching tribe i pitched friendster on letting us build out and manage social classifieds on their network. similarly, we pitched evite on integrating their function rather than building it ourselves.
what excites me about ecosystem around open source software anything is that it works in this way. there was some talk at web 2.0 about how one company was 'more open' than another. while that's the right direction, the real discussion should have been what does the 'open ecosystem' look like and how do we all add to it. we'll be there when the conversation shifts to how can yahoo profitably open its database of users so that anyone can build a myyahoo, yahoo 360, myweb2.0 or myhotjobs. we'll be there when the 5 startups in a new category (flickr for video? blog directories?) all look at each other and say what do we all need to win and how should we divvy that up, rather than a bunch of ants competing for a crumb.
the early social networking players had the opportunity to set the playing field long before the big companies and myriad of other startups showed up. some of us tried to create an open standard with FOAF but today the players remain separate islands of utility rather than part of one larger integrated resource (as we've seen in the blog world).
we see a number of big media companies today flush with cash and web traffic. they seem to all need compelling new applications and ways to monetize. my hope is that they find better ways to invite hackers, entrepreneurs and vc's to build on their platforms.
this is no different than the problems facing the democratic party today, where they have to find a way to let new voices and 'hackers' usurp their power bases if they hope to ever compete.
mark pincus on October 11, 2005 10:02 AMComment link
I think the whole Web 2.0 thing (I must admit to being caught up myself) is mostly BS as an ideal. Web 2.0 is mostly about perception. The perception that the companies building new services and solutions are listening and responding to customers(as if that is a truly new concept). The perception that all of the "new" technology will help improve searching, communications, organization, etc. My mother has never heard of Web 2.0 and probably never will. If fact most of the teens I know don't know what Web 2.0 is either. Nor have they heard or care about some of the services that have been in the news lately. My mother and all of these teens have, however, heard of Google and Microsoft. So while these new companies are experiencing growth among early adopters, I can't see many of these solutions becoming market leaders or spreading to your average non-technical internet user. Too fragmented and clumsy. Unless they are purchased by the aforementioned companies and dare I say bundled!?!?
Solomon Folks on October 11, 2005 10:44 AMComment link
Great comments so far.
I think Ning, which is Marc Andreessen's latest company, is a good example of all this. We blogged about it earlier. Ning is open for others, but yet wanting to forward its own platform. I'm hearing two sides. Some people say Ning doesn't have a natural audience, nor a business model. On the other hand, others note the tools it provides to build sophisticated Web sites have a chance to change the game. Too early to tell. At least things have been shaken up, and no one knows who will emerge successful.
Matt Marshall on October 11, 2005 11:02 AMComment link
I'm inclined to agree with the above comments that what we've seen thus far, in many cases, are features versus fully fleshed-out product offerings. Further, how to monetize these things does not seem to be apparent yet either and is certainly reminiscent of the bubble.
This aside, I think the most compelling thing about 'Web 2.0' is this notion of an interconnected, pervasive information/intelligence network between users. I think it will consist of one part of each of these: social networking, collaborative filtering, data fusion/aggregation, data mining, visualization, artificial intelligence, and location-aware capabilities.
I'd humbly submit that this is the type of solution that my company is working on and I think we have a viable business model to boot (if not funding) ;^). The product is called Mentations (www.mentations.com) and I'd love to get your feedback on it! Even though it is still in beta I'm hoping you'll get the intent. (Hint - right-click on things to customize them.)
Brian Schneeberg on October 11, 2005 12:18 PMComment link
What were they really trying to solve?
That's the question which still remains unasnwered -- atleast to me, personally. True, Web2.0 has demo'ed some incremental solutions to applications that existed since the age of Web1.0 in one form or another but that is all it was, "Incremental".
There hasn't been anything that is really radical about Web2.0, nothing that really helps address more important issues in today's world. By that I mean apart from polished applications/products used to build same old communities/blogs/access e-mails/web etc., there was nothing that solves problems such as growing demand for energy, environmental crisis, better predict natural calamities, reduce casualities in wars etc.
IMO, Web2.0 is nothing but a over hyped buzz word being used by some "smart" people to become rich before Web3.0 starts (including me). ;-)
Warm Regards,
Kavs @ Freelance1.com
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I hesitate to say it, but the truth is, i don't get what many of them do (and i really don't like the names of most of them, but that's besides the point). Maybe it's because i'm not a techie, but many of these technologies seem like they are built for the sake of technology and will make sense only to other techies. I just can't see ordinary people like myself embracing a lot this stuff (at least not yet). Though i regret not attending the Web 2.0 Conference, as i think Clipmarks would have impressed a lot of the attendees, i think there is a kind of 'mine is bigger than yours' thing going on with companies trying to develop amazing technolgoy instead of simply trying to solve problems. Again, it might be that i just don't get it...but at the end of the day, doesn't that fact alone say a lot? I hope that Clipmarks can gain the respect of the Web 2.0 crowd while not alienating ordinary people.
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There is ONLY ONE problem out there (on the web), guys! Namely:I DON'T WANT TO BE DISTURBED BY ADS! Period. My attention belongs to me and I AM READY TO PAY FOR NOBODY TO CONSUME IT (including the idiot that has paid 'Big G' to display ad on this page).
"...THAT is the problem."( Hamlet, prince of Danmark).
Alex Fedotov on October 11, 2005 3:44 PMComment link
To pick two recent advances, autonomous vehicles (robot cars) and low cost earth orbit platforms (space elevators) are real technology trends with some substance to them. Web 2.0 hype bringing me email clients that are more like my desktop does not really qualify as technology advancement in my view. In the web space, real progress will be made with improved access to and sharing of information. To pick a space close to my heart, why is useful knowledge about health and healthcare still lacking on the web? There is a lot of misinformation, few tools to distinguish the good from the bad, few ways to comparison shop or make informed decisions about health care. This is just one of many areas in need not of some whizzy Ajax tools but deep insight into information theory, sharing, and transparency.
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My ideal of Web 2.0 is nothing what I've seen so far. Web sites should be created with the passion to better the lives of the Internet community as a whole. I did not hear one Web 2.0 company, not one that proven how they can change people lives like how eBay transformed e-commerce and the US economy. All they can do is AJAX this and mash-up that and hope either Yahoo or Google buy them one day.
I hope Web 2.0 will not boil down to using chatty Javascript/XML/XMLHTTP calls to compete against MSFT, but to start looking at solutions that will solve people frustrations or make their life better with the World Wide Web.
Ed Dunn on October 11, 2005 5:57 PMComment link
i don't think there were any earth-shattering revelations at the conf, just gradual progress -- but i do think the capital markets are flowing again, and the 'bubble 2.0' stuff is a bit overblown.
the reason 2005 is different from 1999 / 2000 is that exits are not being fueled by retail investor market speculation & IPOs, but rather by mature internet platform company M&A (that is: YHOO, GOOG, MSFT, AMZN, EBAY, AOL(TWX), IACI, etc). whether or not you believe these companies know what the hell they are doing with their investor $$$, their M&A activity has emboldened both entrepreneurs & investors to get back on their horses.
on the 'what is web 2.0' front, i would boil it all down to a very basic observation that the web is faster, richer, and more connected than ever and the web-hosted UI is starting to approach the rich media look & feel of the PC environment of the mid-90's. while this also isn't earth-shattering, it makes for a competitive environment between Microsoft & others, and between desktop apps & web-hosted ASPs. and competition is good for everyone.
all of this makes for a great opportunity to re-test all the old business models proposed in the late 90's again, this time with 1) better tech & bigger pipes, 2) larger domestic & intl userbase, 3) more reasonable marketing budgets & more mature revenue expectations, and 4) sustained interest in acquiring new companies and adding them to mature company platform ecosystems by the major players. which is good for entrepreneurs & their investors.
so nothing new, just the incremental creep of the web & the internet & technology getting better over time.
rock on.
- dave mcclure
www.simplyhired.com
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Web 2.0 is all about people, and the information they provide. The beauty is, social applications can combine all of that information into one central source(flickr for photos, upcoming for events,etc.). We can now, not only see a webpage, but understand that there is a large sense of community behind it. People are making the web's content, with platforms created by startups. It is no longer just the tech savy few and the large companies that are making an impact on the web. I think we saw one of the boldest moves yesterday: Yahoo! displaying blog results right next to professional journalism results. Media is changing, and public opinion will soon be a valid source (valid is different than credible in my mind btw). In Web 2.0, the people control the web and its content. I'm more than excited to be a part of it, and creating a solution that will give even more power to the people. It's 4:30 AM, and I should probably sleep. Wait, startups don't allow for much sleep...
Sincerely,
Jason L. Baptiste
CEO of Viral Ventures
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While the possibilities demonstrated are truly exciting (AJAX is not a gimmick, it's a breakthrough approach to delivering services over the web), the actual services are unexciting- how many cool ways to build your own portal do we need? Show me this:
- revenue model. no cash, no business
- Open, so what? See above.
- Is there anything truly groundbreaking in software design here other than more desktop-like web apps? I'm not seeing real innovation in interface design, underlying file organization, etc. This stuff is still being designed for geeks, IMHO.
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> This stuff is still being designed for geeks, IMHO.
>
Web 2.0: By geeks, for geeks
Web 1.0: By MBAs, for noone
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What in the world does this Ipsum check mean? I keep getting this error
teens i on November 13, 2005 12:00 PMComment link
