Financial Crisis and Web 2.0
Wired has an article discussing how the financial crisis might effect the development of Web 2.0 technologies:
In a widely read essay, Jason Calacanis, the chief executive of Web directory Mahalo, predicted that as many as 80 percent of internet start-ups will “shut down or go on life-support” during the next year and a half. Furthermore, investor Ron Conway last week cautioned his portfolio of internet companies to cut their spending because venture capital was expected to become less readily available for awhile. Similarly, Sequoia Capital held a meeting with its portfolio companies last week, warning them to brace for lean time ahead.
Over at Cnet Rafe Needleman points out some companies that may be at risk (thanks kittenwalker). Can we at least get a government bailout for Twitter and Pandora?
If you need to monitize your tech so that you can project sufficient profit margins to satisfy some cabal of venture capitalists, then, yeah, you’re in trouble.
BUT if you are sick of the software you paid for not doing what ya want and you’re tired of the work-around, and finally say “screwit” and do it yourself and post it on sourceforge just to piss off greedy millionaires then I think you’ll be fine.
In short - I’m not sure that open source is going have the same difficulties and maybe it can take advantage of the “shut down,” wheezing, “life-support” dependent, industry.
These lean times could be a good thing; maybe it’ll get more people involved in the process and less $$.