Are you part of the Blogging Celebrity ?

There are some of us that hang out for www.popbitch.com 's weekly email on which Hollywood A-List 'actors' habits are getting themselves in trouble, in the closet, or are secret $500,000 a day whores for Arab sheiks, and other manifestations that come with being an insecure thespian that earns $20M per film (okay brittany murphy i will return your call even tho u did em' during filming of 8 mile)

On a more prosaic level, with the costs of production (ie free) for someone to become a global journalist (blogger), morning radio comedian shock-jock (podcaster) blogebrity.com takes the piss on all, as they categorise A grade, B grade and C grade bloggers.

Man, I must be a N grade blogger.

Read their blog, spam their forums, phish em however you can.

But with blogging becoming more about the goings on in blogging, and podcasting being a table tennis match between different podcasters (who said podcasting wasnt interactive) it's no surprise blogebrity has sprung up as a site that blogged about bloggers, with parody. I would love to see a re-incarnation of suck.com ana marie cox !

With these type of challenges, no wonder alot of 'A-List' bloggers are getting sick of blogging, and Podcasters are conveying their seniority in the industry by reiterating how many podcasts they have done. (over 100 podcasts is the maturity cut-off point)

That said, I have to plug John Safran's Sunday evening spirituality blog/telecast from Triple J.

It rocks. enter this address into the new version of IpodderX 3, which you can download here if you dont have.

The Long Tail of Software

Today, for 12 hours, I experimented : I built my first web-site by hand (although it was through a commercial, yet free in beta, wiki provider - jotspot)

http://www.jotspot.com

Even though I didnt have to cut my own HTML, I still had to use 'WikiWords' (2 words grouped together without spaces to form a link) and other features which are more complicated than blogging, but also far far more sophisticated.

I am blown away by Jotspot. No wonder they have been able to headhunt one of Yahoo's major if not most important search executives.

And if you read their blog this team love 'hackathons' !

Its the best of Open Source, meets Yahoo, plus Salesforce.com, with the goal of running over Microsoft. Truly. Believe the hype. I love this company (so much I built a website)

Jotspot provides everything a small to medium business, esp one that is online needs, from software :

- Project Management tools
- CRM and Sales apps
- Recruitment Management software
- Intranet forums, polls etc
- Another 30 or so apps, growing daily

You can set-up multiple accounts, give users different authorities, email updates to each page through a unique URL, upload files of up to 5 meg, get an RSS feed for updates. When you list a company for example in the CRM list, or a prospective employee in the recruitment app, Jotspot automatically search google, yahoo news and hoovers inc., for real-time details about the person or company, and updates the wiki. Amazing ! (and its still free, with an invitation)

"The long tail doesn’t just apply to music and movies. There’s a long tail for software as well. Here’s why.

The purpose of software in business is to support the way a business does business – from the way a business runs it’s hiring and firing to the way it orders materials to the way it tracks sales. In the market-speak that surrounds the technology business, the purpose of software in business is to support these “business processes”.

Let’s do some simple math. First, every business has multiple processes. Things like hiring, firing, selling, ordering, etc. Second, while some of these are pretty common in name from business to business (recruiting, for example), in practice, they are usually highly customized. Finally, there are simply a large number of processes that are either unique or that are common to millions of very small markets and therefore not traditionally worth the effort to buy software for (for example, the process by which an architecture firm communicates between it’s clients and the city planning office)."

Before Jotspot, I tried some trendy online project management start-ups like www.backpackit.com - which really only offer to do lists, and basic calendar/dependencies type tasks.

Jotspot's founder, is ex-CEO of excite.com, in the hey-day and he talks about the long Tail for software, it is a fascinating presentation - one that I am sick of in free content/online advertising businesses, but this one would have Microsoft worried.

Or pulling out the Cheque-book.

Does Podcasting need a business model ? Is it too self-referential

Moment of honesty - I love the internet because I can research what happens on the Internet. I love RSS as I can find out what is happening on the Internet by bringing it to me. I love podcasting as I pull the Shuffle out the back of my 20" G5 Imac and walk to the shops and listen to the state of the podcasting industry !

It's as self-referential as a sociology post-graduate class with a room of focault feminists !

I hope there is a business model, but without a self service CPC ad delivery tool that delivers advertisers equal to or more cost effectiveness than Google/Overture (with reporting), and unless mainstream radio start building high reach podcast shows (NBC/ABC launched podcasts this week, and Australia's Triple J's Safran podcast rox).... or the pod networks can aggregate known demographic users, it might be a Long Tail opportunity that takes more than 18 months to commercialise.

Who is the Hitwise or DoubleClick or Adsense of Podcasting ?

There's too much C-Grade shitcasting, either independent, begging users to get them in the Top 25 of podcastalley.com so their mothers will be happy.. or there is another trend to aggregate 10 shows and call it a network, with no revenue.

I love the thrill of finding a new podcast and listening to couples in the middle of nowhere talk about crap and then skype their friend. The more extreme the better (Madge Weinstein, Keith and the Girl)

But like alot of extreme content (wink) I listen to a few podcasts, realised Ive listened to a couple hundred megs (15c a meg extra cost here for downloads) and then dont resubscribe.

Is there a business model for podcasting ? "$60,000 to sponsor the Autoblog.com Web log and podcast for six months, BusinessWeek Online reported. Four months into the deal, the podcast, an audio program that can be downloaded from the Internet, has been retrieved 20,000 times."

People will make money by selling tools to the diggers : Hence podcasting/hosting companies, premium tools provider, and even all in one dot-com part 2 players, to launch next month ex google bloggers, like evhead.com odeo.com (win a mini-ipod now/hat.ever)

Podcast needs a business model, and its about cross-bundling with radio and reviving stars that are sick of morning radio shows, and its about the Long Tail of niche expert content and shitcasting.

Its about Apple building Podcasting hardware and software into Imacs and Ipods.
And making Ipods record, play fm and be wireless, doh !
http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/PlGya890DCE7HV/Sirius-Satellite-Radio-Apple-in-Talks-over-iPod.xhtml

And I guess, now Adam Curry's been to Cupertino, there is going to be paid-subscription for podcasts and daily source code for Itunes !

Oh well, looks like I will be using bit-torrent and limewire to get my podcasts soon !

Good luck to guys at Podcast Network. I respect your JSA/MS backgrounds, love your skype calls, and wish you the best in commercialising these many megs of audio !
http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2005/05/26.html#a10206

Enterprise RSS Leadership will equal Consumer Leadership

"If you think about it, the person who is ultimately the customer here is inside a company. On a general basis, they're more highly paid than the average customer. They do more searches. They're a better advertising target. It makes perfect sense to me that you should do this even if you were not making money—which is not the case. You would be willing to lose money in this business for the strategic leverage that it gets you to reach those customers. They are the power users." - Eric Schmidt, Google CEO on enterprise users.

The same applies to the RSS market. According to Feedburner there are 1800 RSS readers, all offering similar features ie :
- Subscribe to RSS feeds which you tick or enter URL upon registering
- View feeds by site name or tags/channels - with unread items first but no real implicit or explicit 'personalisation' although everyone is talking about it being the RSS Holy Grail (get some sleep feeddemon:)
- Read short, medium or full feed
- New niche services : RSS calendar, RSS auctions, RSS alerts for the mobile on blog updates
- News/blogs focused content

My thesis : The focused company that dominates the consumer RSS space can then build enterprise level software that improves communication and information demands for Fortune 500's (and small businesses for that matter) will end up leading the RSS market.

Its why Mobius and Masthead invested in Newsgator over the other 1799 readers.

Its why Feed-demon went to Newsgator and not to the 'catch up' gorillas (MSFT, GOOG)

And what about all the countries that arent California or New York.

RSS in China, India, dare I say Australia where I reside.

Contracts with the companies that have access to consumers, and want to 'personalise' and retain their consumer (media companies, ISPs, blog networks and tier 2 search players) will increasingly buy enterprise media white labelled solutions offered by the Newsgators.

While Google, MSN, Yahoo and even IACI/Ask/Bloglines (now building a feedster type search engine) might in the end dominate the consumer space (probably after acquisitions) they will not be the ultimate winner in RSS as their focus is more consumer/not enterprise, as they will be too late anyway to claim leadership without acquisition of player like Newsgator (MSFT / NEWSGATOR as mentioned often... hello payday for Mobius)

Then there are the banks, telcos, manufacturing companies, 'un-sexy' companies with mobile sales forces that need to receive the latest update from the team on the products they are selling - using RSS through the wireless PDA.

And those inside firewalled high security companies that want project based, real time, Crackberry type solutions.

I havent seen many of the 1800 companies other than Newsgator, and a bit of Nooked, and some Consenda, offer enterprise RSS solutions.

We are definitely only at the beginning of enterprise RSS.

I cant wait. Especially when we start offering these services in Australia, very, very soon.

.

Is RSS the new Web ?

"RSS is doing to the Web today what the Web has been doing to print for the last several years."

Its going to be happening for Australian Internet users very soon, this RSS thing.

Get ready ! It is going to rock... them, and then some ;)

ninemsn crashed today with the finding of Schapelle Corby guilty in Indonesia of drug trafficking.

The site crashed because of the high consumer demand for the ninemsn blog and audio/podcast of the case, in conjunction with the TV coverage.

This is only the start in Australia.

I've been doing this Internet media thing TEN years in Australia, and it is only now getting traction. From James Packer, the Australian mini-me billionaire media/internet/gambling mogul :

"Unprecedented co-operation between the National Nine News journalists in Bali and the news resources of Nine and ninemsn here will see the most comprehensive coverage live across both media; with audio feeds, near-live translation of the judgement, live blogs from legal experts etc," he said.

In his opening remarks to more than 600 industry delegates yesterday, Mr Packer cited an analyst who recently said: "We are at the end of the beginning in terms of the internet."

Mr Packer said he expected a major correction in online advertising revenue, which was well below the audience the internet was attracting. The Australian online advertising market is now worth $388 million, more than for pay TV, cinema and the outdoor advertising sectors."


.

1 Billion Dollars of Google Employee & Advisor Stock Sell-Downs

"One has to wonder if Google really means to trample the web or are they just stumbling around, like the drunk elephant that IBM used to be, stamping out the little critters and getting ready for their own fall?" Dave Winer

If I was a hedge fund and looked at google, would I be shorting it ??? It looks like google employees are fitting out their million dollar valley pads, with herman miller chairs.

Their new homepage and dodgeball acquisition are awful. It is becoming clear google cannot integrate its various products (gmail, search, blogging, mapping) and has one revenue stream (self service text ads from small businesses)

Dont get me wrong - I love gmail, but im using their search much less, and I think GOOG + MSFT dont really get RSS and this whole wiki, opensource, ajax, social media movement.

And I can smell journalists wanting to smile to google's face and then slowly draw out the story of their demise. Google need the Terry Semel Yahoo approach circa 2002 which was to diversify revenue... On this basis, Google will be talking to the Hollywood majors by 2009 !

"Shattering all previous dot.com records, on May 4th Google registered its largest single instance of insider liquidation to date. Over 1 billion dollars worth sold in under 24 hours.

Pretty impressive, considering if you totaled every penny that Google has made as a corporation since it was founded you don't even come close to a billion dollars of profit. But why bother earning money the old fashioned way like that- this is the new synergistic paradigm!

Google is now officially in business only to sell stock certificates to clueless retail investors- everything else has become a distant second."

Google has become a portal

Welcome to the content game, Google. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and some of us are quite flattered", says Jeremy Zawodny of Yahooo. Why ?

Because google just launched a 1998 portal :
http://www.google.com/ig

It has weather, you can choose between only a handful of content suppliers like (yawn) New York Times, and Wired. The only feature I like is reading my gmail.

The fact it didnt launch day one with full-blown, AJAX programmed, RSS is beyond me.

This reminds me of the old www.excite.com, with their yellow weather clips.

To ponder google's strategy read this extensive slide pack while it is still online :
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050519-143503#slides

Its not myGoogle !

Really Simple Syndication Consolidation

Newsgator.com, my favourite RSS company, has acquired Feed-Demon which is a desktop RSS reader, a product, which NewsGator did not have.

Cash + Stock + Employment deal, which points to the start of many deals, partnerships and acquisition in the RSS space - Companies such as Newsgator and Feedburner, both funded by Mobius, are perfectly positioned to lead this charge as

- They have great management teams and culture - Smart people, great places to work, not arrogant
- Execute smart strategic deals with increasing frequency over past 12 months
- Have raised substantial but not silly amounts of capital from VC (Mobius, Masthead etc) who get the space
- Already have market leadership or strong market share in key segments of the RSS market
- Excellent technology delivery : Newsgator is a true multi-channel, multi-platform player and Feedburner is a unique RSS feeds, reporting and advertising delivery network
- Desire to grow !

I'm very excited to see developments in this space and very keen for these leaders in RSS and associated technologies to capture leadership downunder, before a similar consolidation happens here with others.

Congrats on the deal Newsgator. More to come.

Googles or Yahoo's Long Tail

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, re-affirmed their commitment to 'serving The Long Tail' - which entails making lots of advertising dollars from small, and also large advertisers. Will be interesting to see how far into corporate branding solutions - rich media (eg eyeblaster floating ads), IAB display (eg leaderboard, skyscrapers etc) as well as classic sponsorship (content integration, branded advertorial) google will go.

"We took a look at our market last year and asked ourselves: how are we doing? If you look at the advertiser, the market we're in, how do we do from the largest companies - Wal-Mart - in the world, all the way down to the smallest companies in the world, the single individual. We call this The Long Tail. A lot of people have been talking about it--it's a very interesting idea.

We looked at this and we said, we've been doing really well up until now in the middle part of this. Well-run, mid-sized businesses, smart people solving interesting problems. But how well do we do against the problems of the very largest customers? So last year we brought out a whole suite of tools for very large advertisers who can use our services in all of their divisions to generate lots and lots of revenues because, of course, in our model the advertising drives predictability, it drives conversions, and so forth.

And what about the individual contributor, the small business, the company where Joe or Bob is the CEO, the CIO, the CFO and the worker and the support person--a one person company, a two-person company, a three-person company? We built a whole bunch of small, self-service tools which allowed them to almost automatically use this service.

So [we went] in both directions last year. By going all the way to the top, we were able to capture very large and historically underserved businesses as well as a whole new area that never had access to these kinds of online services."

If given the choice I'd still take yahoo over google - yahoo is an awesomely diversified online media company, been doing it alot longer than google, and its rollout of new products in the last year has been better; myYahoo, Yahoo News Beta, Personalised Search with tagging and RSS, Yahoo Shopping Recommendations, heaps more incl Yahoo Music Engine, which took a large team 2 years to build. From one of their 'project managers' :

"FWIW, my name is Ian Rogers. I used to work with Beastie Boys, for their record label Grand Royal, at Nullsoft (where Justin and Tom made Winamp, SHOUTcast, and Gnutella), and most recently had a very small company called Mediacode with my main man Rob Lord (who started IUMA and brought Nullsoft up with Justin). We sold Mediacode to Yahoo! in Dec 2003 and Y! has had us in a cave ever since building the Yahoo! Music Engine and some other stuff we can't tell you about yet.

But down to the reason you're reading this. I'm asking you to ditch Windows Media Player (aka WiMP, sorry John, Mark), Winamp (pour out a little liquor), iTunes (sorry Chris and Steve G), MusicMatch (apologies to my new brothers and sisters), Rhapsody (you were my first for-pay love, ya tramp), and Napster (THROW ANOTHER STACK OF BENJAMINS ON THE FIRE!), and use Yahoo! Music Engine instead. (If you're using Foobar2000, keep on, brother man, I ain't going to war with y'all purists.)"

The battle for online consumer has just begun and it is going to be very interesting when the portals start really attacking local classifieds ala craigslist; As a consumer you will be able to search all classifieds inventory through one interface ala oodle.com or workzoo.com and on the selling side you will be able to list your car/house/employment for free but only pay for premium placement or a customer that clicks or buys.

Analysts have already assumed this cannibalisation of the print world in the future : I think the real challenge will come to the dot survivors; 1.0 web players like seek.com.au, carsales, realestate and monster.com etc whether they will be able to continue to charge a listing price when yahoo will give it away in its battle with google ? If you are not sure read this quote which shows yahoo's mentality in launching a music service radically cheaper than napster, rhapsody and itunes :

"Fact is, Yahoo! is the only large company that's actually focused on features for the user, with no alterior motives. We want users. Not only that, we want network users so we can to tie together all the services we offer. That's our business. We're not selling you operating systems or hardware on the side."

Yahoo's about the Team not the individual. The network not the application (or at least that is how they are trying to move their ship.... nothing happens overnight)

This problem is compounded by Yahoo's ability to deliver a comparable or better service due to weaknesses in some vertical classifieds consumer offering; In employment for example there is huge dissatisfaction with job boards because employers get too many candidates back (eg 200-500 for a low level job) and too many are of a low quality. Hence new services such as www.jobster.com to target the passive job seeker who the employer really wants.

And why should I have to visit 5 job sites, 3 real estate sites, 3 cars sites, to find a local car/rental/job. Most of the classifieds sites are glorified newspaper advertisements : They are not really consumer focused - They don't get you a better price on a car like they were supposed to, they dont get you access to exclusive housing inventory, nor because they are bundled do they really allow you to sell your house cheaper... There are still lots of 'consumer' gaps to exploit in the media battle, and because of the Long Tail... there is a business case to cover the technical/marketing/staff overheads ! (not to mention yahoo's P/E being in the 50's and google's in the 80's so we are talking growth companies here !)

For google to play in these kind of spaces (local classifieds) it is either going to have to make a big acquisition (it wouldnt get craigslist as ebay own 25% and ebay co' is very aggressive now in classifieds) or buy a 2.0 player like oodle who is just starting : and google so far has been really bad at integrating acquisitions : look at blogger, run as a separate business for years now. (and dont even start me on the dodgeball.com acquisition)

One target which would fit nicely within Yahoo is linkedin.com, which is really kicking along; A Critical Mass sized community (you have to be on it, just like you have to have a blog) Once they introduce smart filtering tools for employers so they can match suitable candidates (through an algorithm such as burningglass.com) and other tools such as jobster.com (plus provide some actual online business networking tools while on the site - what can you really do on linkedin ?) - it will be very successful.

The lines between search and media these days is blurring and Yahoo realised this along time ago. Google's Long Tail SME tailored search + contextual ads, plus their 20% of your time engineering/R&D approach has definitely built some mammoth winners to date (search, gmail) and I cant wait till they bring out an online competitor to MS Office that is free (ad supported !) but they are too dependent on text advertising from small advertisers, do not own their customer relationships strongly enough through membership and premium subscription services, and their non-search services do not integrate into the network.

Lets follow what happens to the Long Tail.

Podcasting 12 Stepper

I'm addicted to podcasting. I never thought I would be but it's happened. Firstly my hardware/software set-up is perfect for a newbie poddie :

- Apple Imac g5 20" as the main hub !
- Apple Ipod Shuffle 512M for my podcasts and music from CDs, limewire, edonkey, bittorrent (azureus, torrentspy)
- Ipodder software to get updated podcasts through RSS
- Itunes which converts downloaded mp3s into my shuffle !

The hardest thing about podcasting isn't setting up the above esp on mac - there are heaps of explanations on what to download and the steps : basically download ipodder or ipodderx or similar 'reader', and use itunes... or something comparable to get onto your ipod/player.

The real challenge is in finding 'podcasts' that suit your style : At the moment podcasts are generally skewed towards commentary about podcasts and the internet (just as blogs are self-referential).. but they are also to steal a phrase from 'The Dollar Show' "shitcasting" - where 2 friends or husband and wife talk shit !

Some are good, some bad, others awful.. but there is the sublime, esp as you go for a brisk morning walk as you head to work with your IPOD.

I listened to a great interview with the VP of bus dev for feedburner.com (a great company) the founder of Newsgator (the leader in RSS) Bill Gates on Windows Mobile, Paris Hiltons first podcast... as well as normal people with fascinating stories. (and seasoned media operators embracing a new medium and enjoying the anarchy - such as Adam Curry)

In terms of podcast specific search tools, there is nothing excellent out there similar to the way feedster.com and technorati and blogpulse let you search for blogs or monitor trends in the podcast-sphere.

The leading podcast search tool (still in beta) is www.podscope.com - which searches for keywords within the podcast - but you have to search broadly eg "hollywood" "technology" ie not too specific eg I searched for "rss" and I got no results. Once you get results though they are from good sources, and it allows you to hear samples, visit their website and 'capture' the URL of the podcast's 'feed' so you can place it in your 'ipodder' reader.

There are also alot of amateur or early days directory services for podcasting incl www.podcastalley.com (their top 25 is a good place to start)

The so-called godfather of podcasting Adam Curry is also a good place to start - dailysourcecode.com : He also authored the ipodder client and has just launched a 4 hour daily broadcast on sirius satellite radio in the US covering and sampling the best podcasts. Get his daily source code, which is a good starter in the way podcasts 'riff' with their audience - adam likes smoking a joint while talking about podcasting, planes, MTV days and generally he's pretty chill.

From there you'll want to either go harder into the podcast world or more mainstream : Paris Hilton's first podcast for her Movie with Warner Bros House of Wax was a must download, not because it was good (the "podcasting community" hated it) but because it was the classic example of watching a train crash or seeing behind the veneer of 21st century celebrity.

Some of the kewl couples podcasting out there that I am now downloading and running over my download limits (avg podcast size is about 20 meg which once you are downloading 4-5 a day, adds up pretty quick if you have small file size limit)

- The Dollar Show : 2 guys very funny : chilled out Howard Stern
- Slashdot Review : 10 minute summary of tech news each day from slashdot.org
- Keith & the Girl : Bitter funny dirty crude diatribes on Paris Hilton, sex scandals
- Sam and Jim go to Hollywood : 2 guys sell their restaurant and houses and get a job at disney for $30K while waiting from HBO on a TV deal : good stuff !
- Podcast 411 : Good interviews with technology executives at Web 2.0 companies
- Verge of the Fringe : Guy places a personals ad in craigslist and documents the date on his podcast. oh and he's bald and has one testicle
- Dawn & Drew Show : Funny couple talk about "stuff"
- Podcasting Network - Australian guys with global content incl G'Day world and guest appearances from the mercurial evangelist Frank Arrigo of MS "where is Longhorn" fame

Sorry the URLs for the sites and podcast feeds arent there but if you search on google or go to podcastalley.com or podcastingnews.com you will find the links you need there.

Podcasting wont replace radio but I cant wait till it goes mainstream and I can get all my new and old media onto the ipod, psp, iriver, xda etc :)

Im just learning now how to run my own podcasts using tools like garage band (on the mac) and australian built www.podifier.com or a premium service ($50 US) www.makepropaganda.com, plus a microphone and skype.com connection (so i can interview others around the world and record it, for free)

You gotta love all this growth in creativity and the challenge it presents !! Get onto it.

Also - Ive just got my feedburner RSS feed running, so for all you newsgator RSS addicts out there subscribe to my blog at http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/Fumd

Web 2.0

There's been a high end blogging debate among the digerati (can I use that word again or are they called bloggers now ?), which while primarily concerned with design and UI, also touches on the 'secret sauce' required to make an internet venture in this new new economy work.

One side of the coin thinks the birth of new services like de.licio.us and flickr (with their tagging and 'folksonomy') has led to a 'whole new internet' and a new period of opportunity.

"....If you’re not yet amazed, inspired, and a little anxious, you might want to consider it. Then get a good night’s sleep and perhaps take a rejuvenating vacation. We’re going to look back at Spring 2005 as a milestone. Watch closely, ladies and gentlemen. Things are about to change in a very big way...."

http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000430.php

One response was quite strongly opposed :

http://notes.torrez.org/2005/04/its_a_whole_new.html

"....The most retarded sentence in it is: "Curious, inventive people are making cool stuff again." Um, hello? WTF? "Again"? I really don't know how to respond to that other than to feel really insulted and feel like anything people made three or four years ago was somehow "boring" because there wasn't any money attached to it...."

Others believe the retreat of venture capital and thud to earth meant practical applications such as blogging and wikking (eg wikipedia, jotspot, moveable type etc) have been the positive output from the last 5 years.

".... People made apps and services that they wanted to use or thought that others would like to use, not only apps for which there was money available to build. There was no pressure...these people had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Out of this period came All Consuming, Movable Type, Amazon Light, millions of blogs, thousands of very active blog communities, the first consumer-grade newsreaders, Wikipedia (and thousands of other wikis), Firefox, FilePile, lots of social software (admittedly much of it of dubious value), Muxway (which became del.icio.us), a huge push toward XHTML/CSS-only sites, and a billion other things I'm forgetting, all when no one was putting any money into anything...."

The latter argument warns that there is and will continue to be a spread of me-too VC following me-too ventures in non-sustainable faddish sectors - eg social bookmarking followers such as wist, furl, even open source derivations of delicious such as de.lirio.us

http://www.kottke.org/05/04/a-whole-new-internet

As with alot of things the truth is somewhere in the middle.

I think of new internet ventures similar to that of the creation and success of a film :

Writer/Director (Founder) : Has a vision of the 'heart' of the 'story' etc and can technically write and possibly direct. The online equivalent is the founder (who sometimes directs too :) as the CEO and often Technical Director. Pitches the studio/VC

Studio (VC) : Miramax (now Dimension), Fox Searchlight etc, Actors turned production moguls like Soderbergh & Clooney, Michael Douglas, etc... are equivalent to John Doer, Kleiner, Benchmark , Mobius (my new favourite) These guys fund the venture, grill the director, change components of the story (website) they dont like and get their financial guys to run the numbers.

Talent (Management Team) : Geeks, passionate sales people, designers who can translate vision to customers interface needs are the web substitute of actors who need to play their role, but they also assist greenlight a project and get people to the cinema. All potential rock stars in the 90's - will be interesting to see what happens in a 2.0 world.

The Shoot : Film sets have a vibe, feeling - Either magic is created, or not, running over time and over budget. Similarly web projects often have a vision which cannot be translated or the wrong mix of skillsets/people

Box Office : The first weekend of a movie will determine whether it breakevens and can make a profit. Number 1 in first weekend leads to great word of mouth, positive press and a 'buzz' that has a network effect - Marketing and distribution is increased, people talk about it more and others dont want to get left out and suddenly its a must see. Google is now a verb ! Skype acquiring new customers for 4c and 50m downloads in 2 years versus a non-profitable non-viral business is a fine line.

The Formula : When a unique film comes out that artistically delivers, has a universal story, wins awards and does good box office (eg Million Dollar Baby) it is either usuallly a new take on an old type of movie (boxing movie) or a totally new type of film (eg Sin City using digital effects)

The point with the formula is not to try and make 'another Speed' or copy a formula which for whatever reason worked at that time, on that shoot, with that director, with those actors...

The same with the web - Once you've used de.licio.us why would I want furl or wist ? However will I use Yahoo's Save Web search feature as I use other of apps ? Im not sure but I really dont want to tag the same page twice, and the de.licio.us community I identify with - I find great sites there so the tagging is worth it.

I think in Web 1.0 we learnt discipline, economics, etc, but we also learnt that bad ideas dont fly.

It is important that the new services that are created aren't imitative or overly derivative. The world doesn't need another RSS aggregator, but I would like a nice wiki wordprocessor so I can ditch Microsoft (Office at least).

Can it just not come from Google ?

Someone else needs to set-up to the plate, and step outside it.