Definitely not but one thing is for sure, Google is going to have to become a little more tame. After snapping up over 13,000 employees and a large number of companies, Google has missed earnings. Many had been predicting that this was going to be the burst of the Web 2.0 bubble, myself included. Google’s miss was not horrendous considering that they still posted a relatively spectacular of 28 percent. Previous to this though Google had never improved less than 60 percent. The valley’s darling has made a misstep. Under hiring and over acquiring. It was bound to happen but the real question is whether or not there will be any significant fallout from this. One thing is for sure: the rapid Google buyout strategy that many startups had been hoping for the past couple of years will now become a less realistic option.

As I mention on my AllFacebook blog today, it looks like the tide is rapidly shifting in Silicon Valley. Facebook seems to be rapidly acquiring many of the Google developers that are looking for more pre-IPO options. Not a bad choice for a talented developer. So will it all come crashing down? Probably not but this is probably a serious reality check for a lot of people in the technology industry.

Last night I has some kind of epiphany while driving home. I was trying to think more about the big picture of social networks, Facebook, and start pages. Where is this really going and where do companies need to be? Since Facebook opened up their platform any successful social network will have to follow. Just because you have 150 million users today, doesn’t mean they won’t go jump on the next big thing. Any social network that plans on being a serious player in the future is going to have to open up at some point. The tides are changing and I think we are rapidly headed toward Web 3.0, a widgetized world in which all the information I need comes directly to me. Once platforms become open though, and all the feature sets become similar, what is each networks competitive advantage? The only competitive advantage each network has is their user base. Facebook targeted college students, MySpace high schoolers and middle schoolers, and LinkedIn targeted professionals.

If you plan on launching a social network, you must figure out your niche and then open up your platform once you have created a user base. As if there weren’t enough signs pointing to the widgetization of the web, two big news events happened today. Marc Andreessen’s Ning, the open source social network received a new round of financing totalling $44 million. Additionally, Bay Partners launched a Facebook-Apps venture fund. Ultimately there will be two major components moving forward:

1. Social Networks – Social networks will be focused on specific niches. We already saw a huge boom in these during the Web 2.0 phase. While these will still sporadically pop-up, many of the niches have already been fulfilled.
2. Widgets – All organizations are going to need to start launching widgets. These widgets will be able to plug directly in to their social network of choice. In this new phase there will be a huge boom in companies that build widget portfolios, create widgets for other companies, and expand their existing offerings via widgets. Bottom line is widgets are officially going mainstream.

While this isn’t exactly new news, I think the widgification of the web has just gained significant traction with the opening of the Facebook platform. With today’s news of a new venture company and Ning’s funding, it helps support the argument that widgification has gone mainstream.

Two nights ago I had the opportunity to watch Michael Moore’s new movie, “Sicko.” The movie has generated a lot of buzz for Google and will probably continue to generate buzz in general over the coming weeks. After watching the movie, I can say that it is completely biased, but that is expected of Michael Moore’s movies. The movie inaccurately portrays nationalized health care as a system free of problems. While the system is free, I know of plenty of people both in Canada and abroad that are under a nationalized health system and they have plenty of issues. Rather than diving deep into the issues of health care I will instead cover what I learned. When you are having problems dealing with your insurance, send them a letter informing them that Michael Moore is about to feature your story in his movie. You will promptly receive a call resolving any issues that you had.

While this doesn’t always work since Michael Moore won’t always be coming out with a movie attacking the health care system, there is a bigger lesson. The insurance companies and HMOs are frequently not held accountable for poor service that they have because many people don’t have the luxury of being able to afford a lawyer. While I have no statistics whatsoever as to what percentage of individuals fall within this category, I have a feeling that it’s pretty high. This is where Revolution Health comes in.

Currently, Revolution Health provides forums for individuals to discuss issues related to their healthcare. What I haven’t been able to find yet is a forum allowing people to list companies by name and express their experiences with them (and potentially rate their experiences). I understand that this could have a negative backlash given that there would be reasons for people to lie in addition to embellish their stories. On the other hand this would surely generate a lot of buzz.¬† Regardless, I think such a forum should exist and I think Revolution would be a great place to put it. If there was an easy way for people to review their health companies, I would hope that this would provide more of an incentive for these companies to become more customer friendly. As of now I don’t know of this type of forum. If you do let me know. Do you think this is a good solution? Ultimately, I think the forum would be used for accountability purposes. Imagine if someone is treated unfairly; buzz is created in the community; and suddenly a backlash begins forcing the company to take action. Perhaps this is an idealist perspective. Thoughts?

Last week Userplane announced a new revenue sharing program called “Userplane Money.” For those that are unaware, Userplane is “the premier provider of communication software for online communities.” I had the fortune to interview the CEO of Userplane, Michael Jones, and find out more about the new program and future plans for Userplane. Here are the questions I asked to Michael Jones and his responses:

1. Techcrunch posted an article yesterday about the new Userplane revenue sharing plan. How does this new plan benefit advertisers and web platform owners?
   

   This is the beginning of a larger scale platform for Userplane/AOL. With our ability now to revenue share with all our partners – we can now build and release additional user-engaging tools for publishers that will play an important factor in monetization of 3rd party traffic. We believe this is the next true iteration of online advertising – the distribution and collaborative-monetization of interactive applications across millions of websites.

2. From my personal experience with the Userplane application, it seems that Userplane is primarily focused on closed networks as a means for instant communication. Any chance of Userplane expanding outside of this realm?
   

   Yes- Userplane is currently working on AIM compatibility as well as further opening up our network. Most publishers using Userplane use the applications specifically for the closed nature of the application – these new open connections will be opt-in by the manager of the community.

3. Does Userplane have any plans to make a Meebo competitor?
   

   Not currently – AOL has both WebAIM API’s as well as a web version of AIM – Userplane is focused on enabling community and user interaction on other people’s websites, not driving traffic to Userplane destinations.

4. Any chance of a Userplane Facebook application being launched?
   

   We certainly have been playing with their API’s – if it is a good fit for our products we would release an app for Facebook – just as we support integration on other platforms such as Vbulletin, Drupal, PHPNuke, Mambo, etc.

Special thanks to Mike for taking the time to answer these questions!

Yesterday morning i was reading a post about Internet Service Providers (ISPs) potentially putting an end to the boom in online video. Supposedly, there are currently ISPs in the UK that are placing a 1 gigabyte cap on users each month. I definitely would flip out if that was the case give that I download a ton of music and videos each month. I have to wonder if this was some hand-picked $5 per month internet service. If they were going to place such a cap there is no way I would be paying what I currently pay. The post also discusses alternative restrictions such as a reduction in max download speed for users once they cross a specified threshold.

By the afternoon, there was a post circulating the web about having too much bandwidth. According to a Business Week post, consumers will start having much faster download speeds thanks to new technologies such as Verizon’s FIOS service. FIOS will provide users with download speeds of up to 30 megabits per second. That is pretty impressive. Video on the computer will suddenly become mainstream once this new technology becomes widely available.

So which one is it? Is there too much or too little bandwidth available? Most likely, if you are a reader of my blog then you are not one of the few individuals that have a small cap on your monthly bandwidth usage (if you are then post a comment, I would love to hear more). I personally am able to download hundreds of songs and tens of full-length movies on a monthly basis. So why did Last100 post an article suggesting the internet arteries will soon be clogged by the overwhelming demand for internet video? Most likely it was simply aimed at creating a little controversy. Conversely, I’m sure that there are internet users that have a small limit on their monthly internet usage, but my guess is they aren’t heavy internet users anyways.

While Joost may have pulled a fast one on the TV industry, their application is pretty slick. I finally decided to test it out last night and I was impressed. Video streamed pretty much flawlessly with the exception of a few seconds of choppy audio. In comparison to alternative video solutions that I have used, this one started streaming as soon as I selected a channel. Currently there are only 25 channels including MTV, Adult Swim, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit, Comedy Central, CNN, and more. Joost plans on using file sharing technology similar to bit torrent in order to allow peers to stream programs to each other. According to other reports that I’ve read, Joost isn’t currently reliant upon their peer technology and is instead streaming for the majority from their own servers.

So how is Joost able to convince the other players involved to stream their content? Currently there are fairly non-invasive commercials. Every 15 to 20 minutes a quick commercial was played and then once in a while a small pop-up ad showed up in the corner. I also was able to turn Joost off from full-screen mode and do other things on my computer while the video played in the corner of the screen. In contrast to other applications that I have previously used and have place a large strain on my computer, Joost did not. If you haven’t had the opportunity to try out Joost you definitely should. If you don’t have an invite yet, post a comment on this post and I will send you one.

Overnight Facebook’s only exit strategy for its current investors has become IPO. Why? They have ultimately created their site as the secure business platform for hundreds if not thousands of businesses that currently exist in an unstable environment as Josh Kopelman highlights. In the next week there will be hundreds of new applications built on the Facebook platform. For Myspace it took months if not years to get to the point they are at now where entire businesses risk their existence on Myspace granting them permission to operate. Now comes along a big thorn in their side. Their potentially biggest competitor has decided to go open source and take their site head on. Why on earth would Facebook want to grant all of the developers in the world 100% access to the ad revenue gained from their products? They have bigger plans and I don’t think Myspace is exactly who they have in sight.

I am willing to bet that within the next month Facebook will easily become the social network of choice to all Myspace users unless Myspace can immediately go open source. Do you think old-timer Rupert Murdoch is going to be up for it? I doubt it, but there is always that chance. Under the assumption that Myspace will fail to immediately adapt, what does the future hold? One route would be Facebook becomes the largest acquisition ever in the internet industry, and as of now Microsoft is the only company that can afford it. If that happens it will happen in the next couple weeks, not months. Alternatively, Facebook is gearing up to become the next dominant player in the search industry. The latter case is what I’m betting on.

Facebook is going to rapidly manifest itself into Google’s biggest competitor. The majority of searches on the web are people related and currently Facebook is handling a large percentage of people related searches. As developers contribute to making Facebook a better site through building applications (similar to the way Google currently builds applications, but through free R&D), Facebook can focus its effort on improving their search features. Look out Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL, Facebook has come to take the web industry head on. When you go to search for people, Facebook will soon be the place you go.

As the New York Times highlights, the first dot com boom was marked by countless startups that generated web portals targeted at a niche audiences. The current boom is marked by startups that generate social networks targeted at niche audiences. See a common thread here? Niche audiences + targeted content = Hopes of becoming rich

If you read Techcrunch, then you know the countless number of social network startups that pop up daily and then receive some phenomenal amount of funding in hopes that they will be bought out for an astronomical amount. Over the course of the past week fuel has been poured on the fire of those with similar grandiose aspirations. With Microsoft dropping six billion dollars on aQuantive, Yahoo potentially spending one billion on Bebo, and a number of other acquisitions taking place, entrepreneurs (specifically webpreneurs) have been given glimmers of hope in their own ventures.

So how long can this last? While I’m not sure how long Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo can continue their ongoing buyout frenzy, I’m confident that it can go on for a while given the amount of cash that each of the companies have. Additionally, these three companies are not the only ones making buyouts. For the entrepreneur that has hopes of exiting via an acquisition, there are plenty of companies that are in the market for buying existing startups. As long as you can position yourself properly to be an asset to another company and can hire good financial consultants, you can significantly increase your odds of being bought out. While your odds of being acquired by one of the three internet giants are slim to none, there is still hope of acquisition by “less notable” companies.

Regardless of exit strategy, there is an interesting parallel between early web portals and the current social networks. While it may simply be an evolution, one has to wonder where the next trend is coming from. As social networks rapidly fill the void of unfulfilled niches, simply coming up with a social network is no longer a viable solution. My guess is that new strategies will come from helping people to leverage their existing social networks externally and, as the Wall Street Journal published yesterday in regards to Facebook, potentially internally as well.

Word on the street is that Google is in talks to acquire Feedburner. On some fronts this makes sense while on others it doesn’t. Google is always looking to acquire new companies that can contribute to expanding their online advertising empire. If anybody can help them further their presence in the RSS market, Feedburner is definitely the company that can do it. Such an acquisition is somewhat questionable though.

Google’s feed reader has been highly successful. Google could simply add in text ads to each post if they really wanted to. That definitely wouldn’t be well received given that the content producers wouldn’t be sharing the revenue being generated. Given that this is still just a rumor, and recent rumors have quickly proven to be false, I will refrain from further analyzing such an acquisition.

According to Read/Write Web, a new study from Forrester Research has emerged that suggests that 2007 will bring about the end of significant growth in the online video sales market. What?!?!? I trust Forrester Research on a lot of things but in terms of online video sales I think they are slightly off. Although I disagree with the initial findings, there are some rational arguments against the growth of paid video download.

Video On-Demand From Cable Providers
Video on demand poses serious competition to web based video download sales. As the saying goes ‚Äúcouch potatoes will be couch potatoes.‚Äù Wait, is that a saying? Oh well! Either way as cable and satellite companies improve their technologies consumers will have rapid access to all video via their television. Let’s be honest, the majority of the world still prefers using their television over their computer. According to the recent Forrester report on social technographics a whopping 52% of the population is practically inactive on the net, or at least not significant participants.

Advertising Supported Video Services
Services such as Joost are paving the way for free video content delivered via the web, all supported by ad revenue. This is practically tv for your computer. (Speaking of which if you’d like to try out Joost than go fill out this form.) If you don’t mind flipping through the channels then you are good to go, but what if you don’t want to flip channels and there is a specific movie that you want to watch?

Consumers still want to watch their movies and tv shows on their own time. To suggest that we won’t see much growth in this is slightly skewed. Given that the technology still has yet to be perfected, and no online services are using bittorrent or similar technologies to increase the speed of download, I think we still have plenty of room to grow. While there are more people that want to watch videos in front of their television (or home theater), there are still a large number of people that want to watch video while on the go. If that market is saturated by the end of the year then Forrester is right, but I have to disagree on this one. I think this market is far from saturated and as we make it easier for web users to download videos quicker and more effortless we will be headed toward the peak. Apparently the Forrester research that was published a couple days ago thinks that we are closer to the peak than I do.

This past weekend at Podcamp NYC I attended a presentation by Drew Olanoff of Pluggd. Toward the end of the presentation Drew began accepting questions at which point I decided to ask ‚ÄúWhat is your current revenue model?‚Äù His response was ultimately that they don’t currently have a revenue model as investors are investing in the technology that they are developing called ‚ÄúHearHere‚Äù. According to their site:

Pluggd’s HearHere technology lets you jump to the exact position in audio or video where there is something you want to hear. Use HearHere to search the speeches and compare positions on current issues.

I gotta admit, that the heat map technology is pretty sweet, but it is more of a novelty than a robust solution. I’m guessing that their main goal is to ultimately have a podcast search engine. Additionally, I am confident that Google is already pursuing audio indexing technologies as it is their business to index the internet. Pluggd is up against some pretty stiff competition. Pluggd is also using a 3rd party voice recognition system rather than in house technology. I won’t elaborate on that since there is something else that I think is more important to this story.

While Drew claimed that they don’t have a revenue model, a quick browse around the site shows otherwise. You can see Google Ads that I’m sure provide a modest source of revenue. As we already know though, basing your startup on the ad supported revenue model is risky business on the internet nowadays. Do they really have investors that aren’t concerned with future revenue? I seriously doubt it. What this actually sounds like is one of two things: bubble talk or a conscious decision to hide their actual plans. I would like to believe the latter, but even an interview with Pluggd CEO Jonathan Thompson was absent of any discussion of their revenue model. Has asking about a company’s revenue model become something bloggers and journalists would prefer to avoid? Come to think of it, many of the companies featured on Techcrunch don’t have a stated revenue model. I guess we are to assume that they are following an ad supported revenue model. Granted, blogs like Techcrunch and Mashable are not in the business of analyzing companies, simply covering the basic story of a company. When did a company’s revenue model stop being part of the story?

Today I am off to Podcamp NYC. I am really excited to go to the event. There are a bunch of great speakers/participants lined up. It is slightly overwhelming given that there are almost 96 presentations in all. Unfortunately, if you want to sit through entire presentations you can only see 8 of them, so there better be some good coverage by bloggers. I am going to try recording some of the presentations and putting them up on my blog. So check in over the course of the weekend or on Monday and hopefully I’ll have some good stuff for you to read and watch. While I’m not really a podcaster, I hope to learn a lot more about podcasting and potentially provide you with alternative media content in the future. Enjoy your weekend!