I picked these eight sites in part because they are all smart, successful, dynamic sites that most of us are pulling for. What concerns me is that they basically follow the same business plan: Let’s build something really cool, give it away for free, and figure out how to make money off it later. Difficulty: Recession. Later is sooner than we thought.
Consider how you would feel if you fired up your computer one day and found that one of these sites – say, Flickr or Facebook – had closed, and the data you shared with them was inaccessible and about to be erased. I got to thinking about this because of a story I wrote at work yesterday about a technology provider for photographers that suddenly shut down.
I sure don’t wish anyone out of a job, but realistically, I think some things are about to start crashing back down to Earth. My predictions are in the comments.
I got a Wednesday Times and you can’t have it! People are bidding $50 for them on eBay.
Thinking about the fact that a black guy just won the presidency, nerds are back in charge of the executive branch, and newspapers are suddenly cool again, it seemed a good time to leaf through my box of important front pages. See below… Read the rest of this entry »
When the bar in Gowanus where we were trying to watch the election got too crowded, a group of us walked over to Leslie and Brian’s apartment. Two pizzas were ordered. We passed the remote around, jumping between MSNBC, CNN and Comedy Central. I had saved a page from the newspaper with a map and a schedule on it, which was helpful for following along. As 11 p.m. approached, a few more states flipped blue. Then, with Wolf Blitzer standing in front of a big graphic, a countdown started. At the top of the hour, as polls closed on the West Coast, the Breaking News graphic swooshed across the screen, and text on the screen called it for Obama. The math checked out – there was no way he could lose. We cheered.
On the car ride home, three guys were standing on the divider in the middle of 4th Avenue, cheering Barack’s name, and getting cars to honk. There were more cheers in other directions. Back at home we watched Obama deliver his acceptance speech. It was a good speech.
Now back to Earth. We do not worship presidents. Government is always subject to the failures of humans and the inevitable letdown of ugly compromises. And please don’t listen to anybody who says this is proof that we’ve moved beyond racism, because we have a long way to go.
My sense of things: New York (and my community in Brooklyn in particular) is more electrified about this election than any event in recent memory. The enthusiasm level is much higher than when the Giants were in the Super Bowl, for example.
I propose a game. Predict which of the following Web 2.0 sites will be out of business one year from now, on November 12, 2009:
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