Dot-com 2.0?

Is it me who's confused or is the tech world partying like it is 1999 all over again? I am amazed at the number of startups calling themselves 'Web 2.0 companies' - and there's a term that needs to be squashed, ungently if need be, and quickly interred (not withstanding O'Reilly's definition). There's nothing inherently wrong with the term and what it was intended to define, and I initially found it very interesting and inspiring even (thinking of all the possibilities out there), but with so many startups jumping on the Web 2.0 bandwagon, it is getting hard to see the substance beyond the hype-storm.

The deja-vu is so thick and strong you could bottle and market it ('Redux', the perfume that will haunt you - again). It reminds me of the time when everyone was clambering onto the 'e-commerce' bandwagon, and then the 'marketplace' bandwagon, to be closely followed by 'b2b' and 'ASP', not to mention 'P2P' - I remember more than one person seriously advising me to pitch my venture as the hot-trend du jour. And here we go again - everyone want to start a Google, MySpace or YouTube even if they don't all have their business models figured out yet.

And yes, this rant does have something to do with the startup ethos. (By the way, this post has a tech-biz focus, but most likely faddism exists in other markets too - though they may not experience the same pandemic effects). I'm confident that the market will take care of itself sooner or later, and only the worthy will be standing and recognizable a couple of years down the road. But in the near term, the Web 2.0 frenzy seems to be bamboozling a whole bunch of new entrepreneurs and would-be members of the founding teams into thinking that's where they should be. It is sorely tempting to see if there's anyway to turn your idea into something resembling a community if you believe that's where the money is. And all the folks looking to join a startup believe that if the company doesn't have a Web 2.0 tag it is not worth their consideration.

It helps to remember the fundamentals. Instead of shlepping around a solution searching for a problem, start with a real, immediate need that is pervasive and (preferably) painful, something people will pay to get fixed and go figure out how to fix it for them. Alternately, take something people love to do (like connect with their friends or share baby pictures with family) and make it easier for them to do more of it in new and fun ways. Starting a company with 'can I make this look like MySpace?' seems like taking the entrepreneurial risk to a whole new level - one that most likely will end in a bust.