Michael Arrington on ‘What’s Next’
Mike Arrington - the founder of the popular blog TechCrunch - realizes that he either has the best or worst time to speak…he’s speaking while people are chowing down on lunch. He begins his discussion with a disclaimer, “The best entrepreneurs never listen to anybody”.
What’s Different from Web 1.0
Slow Apps vs. Javascript/AJAX/Flash Apps
One-way vs. Two way
IPO for Billions vs. Sell for Millions
Beg for PR vs. News Spread Virally
Recycling 1999 Ideas Isn’t Stupid
Technology can make old ideas successful…and now, there are better ways to pay for services (PayPal), monetize content (AdSense), and distribute information (RSS).
Some of the Winners
Mike defines a winner as a company who sold their business…Writely, Newroo, Delicious, Weblogs Inc., MySpace, and Skype are some of them.
Future winners include: Digg, Facebook, Youtube, Netvibes, Zoho Projects, Photobucket, PlentyofFish, Netvibes, and StumbleUpon
Facebook is probably worth $2b…MySpace should be scared of them. PlentyofFish is Match.com but free and its a one man show…the guy running it is making $300k/month.
Some of the Losers
Mike says he isn’t proud that some of these companies exist, although they might be financially successful in the long run:
Inform, Gather, PubSub, and JigSaw
Opportunity Areas
Platforms, Port Desktop Apps to Web, Office Efficiency, Cloud Storage, identity, Developer Tools, Enterprise
Mike admits that TechCrunch is very consumer facing, as was his discussion but he says he will be launching a new blog with an Enterprise focus in the next couple of weeks. Since everything he touches seems to be successful, definitely stay tuned to his blog.
September 22, 2006 at 5:44 am
Great Stuff! But what about all the t-shirts sites? These sites have been built around a mix of “unique product” and “community” (very 2.0). This business is exploding on the internet and hardly anyone is talking about it (except for PUI-WING TAM from WSJ.com). Spreadshirt.com just received several million in VC funding from Accel (they also went from online to off-line by actually opening their first retail store: http://www.derby.spreadshirt.net), and LaFraise.com just sold for about $3 million (the company was ran by 3 people and was only 2-years old). In the US, there are projects like Threadless.com, TshirtHell.com, Bustedtees.com and Defunker.com making millions. I heard (rumor) that the successful Spanish project, SetaLoca.com is looking to hit the US market next year. There’s a HUGE Hispanic market just waiting to be tapped and I’m sure it will be a hit with non-Spanish speakers, as well. Anyway, it would be interesting to see someone follow this “online t-shirt” industry! Cheers and I look forward to reading more from Michael.