This is the first serious indication I have seen that the Web2.0 hype is dwindling. Interesting if it should be because of shrinking Alexa numbers though...
Financial interest appears to be shifting, if anything, back: to first-generation web companies such as Webex and Opentable which are mature enough to command billion-dollar-plus valuations. ... The hypothesis - that Web 2.0 is "over and out" - rests on a few charts from the popular Amazon-owned measurement service. According to Alexa, sites such as Techcrunch, Michael Arrington's highly influential tech news and reviews title, are on the decline.
Link: BUBBLE: Alexa error triggers crisis of confidence - Valleywag.
Why "finally" though, you would think someone working with what I do would love the attention the web has been getting again the past two years. Well, I just can't stand the hype, in any industry. It allows for ill thought through products and services to be pushed out to an uninformed market where it is gladly financed and presented as the next best thing since sliced bread without anyone stopping to think about consequences, best practices, previous experiences or even good business models. Stopping to think? There's money to be made!
Good things emerge from hype though, eventually. Hype provides fuel enough to reach a market size where when the hype dies, the good companies, the actually working products and the happy customers remain.
Interesting how short memory money has. You would expect after a bubble like we had around the turn of the century (I like that phrase, it sounds grand) that money would have learned enough to stay away from bad web based business plans and untried ideas but not only does it flock to yet another Internet hype, it suddenly also starts talking about first generation web companies, once slagged off, as "mature and solid". And rightly so, companies like Amazon, eBay, Google have clearly proved that the web is here to stay.
Wonder which companies we have seen pop up under the warming glow of Web2.0 hype that we will say the same about five years from now. YouTube and MySpace? I think not...
Comments