What is all of this crap?

posted by pete on May 18th, 2009

I just came across this really fascinating (and totally unscientific) logo visualization that attempts to show how the perceived “key players” of 2006 actually did circa 2009. I have a few reactions to it, some positive and some negative.

I’m overwhelmed with how irrelevant most of the product offerings represented on the diagram seem to me. Who uses this garbage? What purpose does it really serve? I sincerely hope that whatever second-wave dot.bomb optimism fueled the creation of some of these projects has been thoroughly reality-checked by the recent economic situation. I weep to imagine the good that could have been done in the world if instead of building “Zoozio” or “Noodly”, the folks involved had volunteered their time digging wells in impoverished countries.

I frequently have to convince myself that I’m not a “real” demographic, that my friends and I — alpha nerds — are not representative of the masses who flock to MySpace and leave millions of comments on YouTube. And yet, I think there’s a fallacy there too, because even those “great unwashed” folks that “consume” all of this awesome “content” we create are a lot smarter than self-identified smart people give them credit for.

However, on the positive side of things, I think it’s actually a pretty optimistic perspective on the risks involved with running a web startup.

These numbers are rough:

• 150 companies on the original chart
• 59 companies in the deadpool
• 28 companies purchased by a larger company (aka a liquidation event)

You know what? Those are actually remarkably good odds, considering that entrepreneurs are routinely told that after massive initial cash outlays, they should not expect to make profit within five years AND only 1 in 5 companies should expect to even make it to five years.

Allowing for a significant percentage of dormant entities on the chart, it seems like your average Web 2.0 bet measures up well against starting a restaurant, or a dollar store. I doubt many of them have turned a profit, but that’s never the point on the social web, right?

Thank goodness we still have Whuffie, or some of us would be really broke!

The article which inspired this is here.