mattmonihan

So here it comes, the next tech bubble. Mike on techcrunch just wrote an article about the massive flow of money in Silicon Valley. He talks about how it’s just as crazy as it was in the late 90s, just before the failed .com IPOs. So what makes the “Web2.0″ sites of today any different from Pets.com? Well, for one thing, at least Pets.com had some sort of business model: sell pet supplies. These days the business model is:

1. Create a feature that draws the masses.
2. Get big.
3. Get Bought
4. Slap Google adsense on the site and pray you make money

Case in point: youTube

In the case of youTube, I think they realized the straight adsense model isn’t working out, so now they’re trying revver’s model instead. The point I’m trying to make is that most new companies getting funded don’t create well rounded products. They create features and market them as techonological inovations. Social networking is a feature. Video/Photo sharing is a feature. Blogging is a feature. Far too often, sites are created based on one or two features, but a month after they launch, a competitor launches an exact replica.

Twitter baffles me. I’m an avid user of facebook, but the “facebook status” feature is kinda lame. And now we have a startup based soley on a ripoff of facebook status. I wish I could of thought of that. In Twitter’s defense, some of the apps people have made to plot their friends on maps have been pretty cool. I would love to see Twitter’s business model.

While I can be bitter about why I’m not rich already, I can only hope to keep plugging away, looking for a feature I can take and convince people it’s a technology.