SIG (web2.0, social net, mapping) Observations
-Ed
Last night a couple of us attended a small SIG of professionals, investors and entrepreneurs interested in Web 2.0, Social networks and Mapping. I’d say about 30 peeps. Henri was the speaker for the event.
• There were several suggestions from the audience pointing to the challenges of doing a start-up involving hardware. People think integrating the Internet and hardware devices is a great idea but there are many landmines a start-up is not prepared to face (see “Mouse Driver Chronicles”). I decided not to bring up that IPEVO is not a typical Silicon Valley start-up. It has roots in Taiwan focused on product design, manufacturing and marketing. The arguments reminded me of something I learned from RF, “You can’t raise money in Silicon Valley for hardware and you can’t raise money in Taiwan for software.” We’ll…what if you’re in both places?
• “Doing a start up on the web is like jumping into shark-infested waters.” Yup. We’ve all been there. The web and open standards is great because it lowers the barrier to do some interesting work with wide distribution. It’s also the downside if or when you want these barriers-to-entry when its time to monitize.
• “I’ll never start another web business with advertising revenue model.” It’s tough. There was some nice discussion on this from various points of view. MySpace with $0.08 CPM versus a more focused but smaller social networking site in NYC, targeting single affluent women, getting $40.00 CPM.
• There is always a contrarian in the audience. Whatever your position, these individuals will take the opposite side. They are usually armed pretty well with facts. If you let them talk long enough, they will take both sides of an argument and contradict themselves. If possible, and if you have the time, sit back and enjoy the show.
• Social networks. Too many. Fitting so many difference demographics. Probably going through a purge. A few will survive and become very meaningful and part of daily life perhaps supplanting some search engines. Social search. More research needed here.
Filed under: Advertising, Mergers & Acquisitions, Outside the Office, Social Networking, The Office, Web3.0
