Bubble Crunch

Michael Arrington has released one of his classic posts in which he sums up the current state of Web 2.0 and gives short shrift to the bubblemongers out there – a few failures are direct evidence that we are not in a bubble and that the private venture markets are actually in the process of letting off a little steam to keep things rational.

I agree wholeheartedly with Michael. He sums the situation up perfectly here:

So every time a startup dies, I don’t think it’s evidence of a bubble about to burst. I think it’s evidence of a market that is working exactly as it should. Most companies fail, but enough win to keep the whole ecosystem healthy.

Michael also has a good riff about the network effect:-

The Network Effect is still the most powerful force driving Internet success today. People don’t, for example, go to Digg because it has great software. The original Digg, as launched, cost Kevin Rose less than $2,000 to create. Anyone can create a Digg clone, and many have. The reason Digg is, and will continue to be, successful is because of the community it has created. People go to Digg because everyone else goes to Digg, and every new user who submits stories and/or votes occasionally adds value to the whole network. The Network Effect is also driving Facebook’s success, and YouTube’s. None of these companies have interesting software. All of them have an incredibly valuable community. All of these companies have to work hard to keep their lead, but it is nearly impossible for new entrants to catch up.

Nice article, Michael – this is what we want to see more of.

The Era of Instant Journalism

I recently did an interview for a financial publication on the state of blogging and its impact on business. One of the points I focused on was how bloggers have become far more influential as immediate news sources. Picking up on this point Andy Abramson has a great post about “Creative Video Blogging and the New Instant Journalism”.

Andy looks at CES, which is happening this week in Las Vegas, and postulates that it’s going to be the independent news sources, not the main stream media where a lot of the ‘breaking news’ and more interesting stories get told. With blogging, podcasting and video blogging from anywhere there’s an IP connection, we have entered an era of “Instant Journalism” and of “just in time” distribution of news content.

This is a point well made and Nicholas Carr calls this the “New Instantaneousness” – and says that Instant Journalists cannot be overly concerned with punctuation, grammar and spelling — they are all about getting the story out and so need to write as if pursued by a cheetah across the Serengeti.

Nice analogy, but from my point of view getting the message out does not mean getting it out sloppily. Firstly an iJournalist can hone his or her skills to ensure they minimalise their mistakes, and secondly, use a spell check function and get a colleague to read your posts and point out mistakes — you can always go back in later and edit.

Andy notes the initiative that Benjamin Higginbotham is bringing to CES – you can send Ben a video mail or skype voicemail of burning questions you have for manufacturers and he will get their answers and blast them out on his daily netcasts. Cool!

There’s a Rocketboom on Capitol Hill

Joanne Colan of Rocketboom faciliated a forum on the virtual Capitol Hill within Second Life this week. The forum was spearheaded by the avatar of George Miller, Chairman of the Demoratic Policy Committee and it was the opening event of the vHill.

Commenting on the event, Philip Rosedale, CEO of Linden Lab, said, “This is just the kind of thing that makes us proud to be involved in the development of technology that allows for this type of interactivity.”