Everyone makes mistakes, but only idiots don’t learn from them. That’s why we laugh at Germans for starting a huge war two decades after losing one. And that’s why I’m laughing at the vast number of idiots out there with money to invest in stupid ideas. It’s like they completely forgot what happened in 2001. That was only six years ago, making Web 2.0 investors dumber than Germans by a factor of four.
I don’t think I should get into a long list of dumb Web 2.0 ideas because I would be here till doomsday. But here’s a sampling from Techcrunch’s recent headlines:
- CouchSwap (which has a competitor!): as if social networking applications didn’t have enough creeps, you can now invite them into your home to use your couch! Safe AND Brilliant!
- Amazon Fresh: Not making enough money being the hugest online bookseller ever? Copy a 90’s grocery company that went bankrupt!
- Shelfari: Are you smart??? People will never know unless you show them your bookshelf with Shelfari. Plus, if it weren’t a valuable networking tool would Amazon give Shelfari $1million?! Of course not. So join now!
I mean, why aren’t companies like this going to fail just like they did in the 90’s? Oh, I know! Because Web 2.0 companies are called mystupididea.com or stoopedajdea.com instead of estupididea.com, and because the fonts are twice as big, and because the logos are twice as shiny and categories are now called tags!
Why am I annoyed? Besides liking to point out stupidities, I have another axe to grind. After 2001, the disgraced self-made coders had trouble finding a job. That means people needed a computer science education to have it good in the field, and I got one. When the Web 2.0 craziness started up, a new slew of self-made PHP and RoR script kiddies entered the scene, so when the 2.0 bubble bursts, the IT economy is going to take a serious kick in the behind and there will again be a surplus of coders. Which means that I might very well be out of a job. Thanks, bubble blowers!
8 Comments
I agree wholeheartedly here. You have a bunch of these stupid “companies” that do nothing more than “connect” you with others about some topic. Something that BBSes, forums and usenet all did way back when! But, now it’s more shiny and “designy,” so it’s OK. Oh and I love the people who say stuff like, “I just did it to learn RoR, but it turned into a company.” If you did? Then why did you spend so much friggin time making the design look snappy?
The best success story in my eyes is del.icio.us. Del.icio.us really went from a personal project to solve a problem to a hit. I use it at least once daily. Shelfari–never.
When the web2.0 bubble bursts, the web3.0 bubble will form. Companies will be named stuff like http://totally.bitch.en and you will have to pay a penny for every single peice of content you download. The government will step in, and tax said penny at 75% creating negative hyper-inflation in the tech sector. All tech people will put down they computers and get jobs in the contsrution industry, or the food service industry. This will cause wide spread panic in the restaurant builders groups. People will stop building buildings.. Eventually we’ll all move into a giant field in Scottsdale, AZ. The end is nigh.
Che, you should quit your job and make money looking into a glass ball and pretending to know junk about the future.
lol.
Whatever happens, it’s great spectator sport. There are always ‘bubbles’, and there are always ‘bursts’. What matters is how big each bubble and burst is.
Delicious is not going to die.
Neither is Facebook.
Neither is LinkedIn.
And neither are countless other 2.0 offerings.
But stuff like Shelfari? Time will tell.
My opinion centres on – “What’s the big deal anyway”?.
Offline companies grow or go pop all the time. And just like offline companies, some new Web 2.0 offerings are destined (or have aspirations) to be big, whilst some are destined (or have aspirations) to be small or niche. What’s wrong with that?
Maybe Shelfari is happy to simply be a tiny app to enable virtual bookclubs?
Sometimes I do think people look at new 2.0 offerings and too quickly judge whether what they see can become the next facebook or delicious.
Perhaps they have no intention to be big at all.
Great post RoboZen.
Chris from rawstylus.wordpress.com
This is worth reading on the topic http://marshallk.com/john-dvorak-isnt-just-cranky-hes-cranky-and-wrong
fyi.
Actually england started WW1 when it sent troops to Iraq to prevent the Berlin to Baghdad railway that would have given Germany a HUGE leg up on oil production.
As if a war would actually be started because ONE GUY GOT KILLED.
Yeah, I just said Germany started the second one.
Let’s see. Is this a discussion about Capitalism? Communism? Facism? Imperialism? Oligarchy? Googlism? Personally, I think it’s about “tribalism”. A deepening here. And I like what Ozzy Osbourne would probably ask: “What the f..k is a Web 2.0?”