“The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated” -Mark Twain
Given some of the recent stock performance of Silicon Valley heavyweights this week, GOOG, AAPL, INTC, TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington is throwing out a jab at the Web 2.0 entreprenuers that the fun may be over, Web 2.0 is dead. I can’t help but think back to Prof. Kane’s slide on the hype cycle. Even in Arrington’s post he concedes that while the boom may be over, the technology is here to stay.
“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 as mentioned in class, there’s a reason to believe we’ll be seeing the true use of this technology in the future. Does it mean that the valuation of Facebook might be a little high? Yes. Are VCs going to think twice before funding another 20 widget/app developers? Yes. In the current times, it might be safe to bet on startups with tangible products and related revenue. However, there’s reason to believe that the quick growth and development in the Web 2.0 tools will become the fertilizer for the next generation of technology.
TechCrunch: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/10/an-ignoble-but-much-needed-end-to-web-20/
a rebuttal: http://tinycrunch.com/2008/10/10/why-i-dont-buy-into-the-web-20-death-tinycrunch/
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October 10, 2008 at 11:57 pm
Mark Raskino
Hi – we think Web 2.0 will pass through the Hype Cycle trough of disillusionment and come out the other side fairly quickly, for something of its magnitude. The trough is a sorting out period. Weak ideas and weak start-ups disappear but fundamental problems get resolved (business models or business cases for example).
Sometimes the name of the innovation dies in the trough though – particularly if it’s big enough to be ubiquitous. There is certainly a case for saying ‘e-business’ (V. hot in 2000) became just ‘business as usual’ (by 2005).
October 15, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Geoffrey Torrance
So what if Web 2.0 is dead? The current finacial situation is probably a blessing in disguise. Larger company’s will be able to acquire start ups for a fraction of the price. Remember how much Microsoft paid for a stake in Facebook?…that seemed sooo inflated. I also think it helps propel us into a new generation of technology. What that means I don’t know but I surely can imagine the opportunities that lie ahead for RFID, robots and the semantic web. Regardless of what happens, just like Web 1.0 (Zara example), Web 2.0 will find the slope of enlightment and find its place in business models.