(2012-11-25) Non Consumer Web

Fred Wilson notes that the OPM situation for Consumer Web (B2C) Start Up-s is rough right now: 1) the consumer web has matured... 2) the consumer is moving from desktop/web to Mobile/app... 3) the momentum/late stage investors have moved from consumer to Enterprise (B2B).

Anil Dash counters: I may just have a different read on @fredwilson's posts, but when he says things look like the Internet of 2001-2004, I just think, "YES!" (DotCom) (His point is that a lot of crucial creative stuff got built by unemployed people then, like the whole BlogWeb.)

DanLyons quotes Sanu Desai predicting a trillion-dollar transfer of wealth in Silicon Valley (from big Enterprise players like Or Acle, SAP, Microsoft, Cisco and so on to new players like Fuze Box.

Charlie O Donnell sees a more New Economy/Collective Action/Collaboration Ware angle. As FlickR did for the social web and consumption models, GitHub uses an open, social design for all sorts collaborative models, like Do Cracy's open source contact negotiation tools, Grab C A D for mechanical engineers, or Know Able for physical DIY projects. The idea of working together in communities to share best practices around creation has inspired companies that get people doing stuff like MakerBot and WindowFarms. Need to find a collaborator? Go to Collab Finder, of course--where instead of following people, you do things with them... Nowadays, we have Market-places--either explicitly featuring buyers and sellers, like Etsy, or "marketplaces for attention", like Google Search or social media, that can attracted relevent buyers to individual businesses. The overhead cost of running any kind of a business, given shared access to workspaces, machines, rapid prototyping, and SaaS software, has fallen off the table. That makes the cost savings of joining collectives and giving up ownership in your own revenue less compelling, and therefore pushes more people to be freelancers and super small business owners. With more constituencies to deal with, each having their own specialization, the need for social collaboration to get things done increases.