How many people do you know who are looking for that killer online idea wanting to be the next [insert name of web company bought by search engine giant for 57 times its actual worth here]?
If only they’d spend a couple of hours researching their brain-toot online instead of wasting more of your or their time than is absolutely necessary. After all, it’s only some lame Youtube clone done in frontpage that requires the user to email the video to the webmaster before it crashes some cheap server.
CNN has 25 startups to watch covering all your fancy Web 2.0 pioneers from StumbleUpon to SimulScribe in a range of categories.
One of the interesting things is the amount of money some of them had as backing. Nobody seems to have been funded by less than $750,000 and nobody seems to have come up with a bone-headed idea either.
But the thing is, instead of wanting to retire on the backend of a new Myspace, why not consider how elements of this kind of software can benefit your business online. There are still plenty of industry niches and geographical areas that are yet to catch on to Web 1.0. That isn’t to belittle said industries or areas, it’s just a fact that your average Web 2.0 type tends to forget.
And that’s as good a reason I can think of for attending conferences such as Online Marketing: Innovations That Work in areas such as Pittsburgh.
It isn’t just about having a web presence or getting that web presence found; it’s also about ways of building communities and developing conversations with your customers – wherever you may be.
For those who think the web has been won, take into consideration that the “old guard” companies like Yahoo!, Google and eBay (my employer) would barely be approaching the 6th grade if they were people. These companies are buying and partnering with the so called 2.0 generation of the web for good reason — because they still think there’s a lot of competing left to do online. And from the behemoths that survived and grew through the early part of the decade to the startps they are buying or partnering with … they are all great stories that by the time you’ve heard about them have been proactively and very thoughtfully crafted and marketed (even if sometimes they seem like they just ebb from the cracks of the sidewalk.)
See you in Pittsburgh.
Jose
And in the name of competition I almost marked your comment spam for unsolicited employer promotion.
Only kidding.
Do you think the web can ever really be won? The companies that seem to be winning are those constantly on the lookout for the latest and greatest and willing to evolve with them. (Or just buy them out.)
Adapt or die seems to be quite a reasonable business model in this respect.
I am very much looking forward to seeing you in Pittsburgh.
Probably not in the traditional sense because the barrier to entry online isn’t quite what it is offline. Which is where I would think today’s entrepreneurs are hanging their hopes. For a lot of companies it’s a win to go public or be bought out or to be among the market leaders vs. being the market leader.
I actually think the companies that do well online are those that pay the most attention to what their communities and current customers want. The latest or the greatest from a techology perspective isn’t enough anymore. It has to be meaningful and make a difference to our ‘real lives’ or the technology piece is just overhead.
My point to my earlier post, though, is what I’ve learned in my career: that great stories are told, rarely found. Even the so called grassroots efforts are just that…well planned efforts. So the point to smaller players is really to market yourselves and be experimental — because you can be sure as the day is long that the market leaders are.