Panic at TechCrunch?

The problem of being a journalist is that you need to find stories. I usually appreciate Michael Arrington's post but here is a story that is totally beside the point.

How can one relate directly a financial crisis to a media usage pattern??? Yes, some start-up will go bankrupt, i.e supply goes down. But it does not mean that the entire media usage pattern of the past 10 years will suddenly change, i.e demand is still here.

If one defines web 2.0 (and I'm not fan of lingo) as harvesting collective intelligence, claiming that it is dead is just absurd. Did train usage stop because of 1929 crisis? No. Did TV stop because of 1973 crisis? No. So why would the demand side of the Web "democratization" stop because of an upcoming recession? "Democratization" of all sort of products have been a common pattern over the past century across all industries. A new one has recently emerged in the media industry via the Web. CDOs and CDSs won't stop the demand for this! User generated content will survive this financial crisis.

While I am not sitting in the Silicon Valley, it seems from reading blogs in the past few days that there is a real state of panic currently in the Web industry because of Wall Street events. As I mentioned in a previous post, yes, we will go through rough times. But demands rarely changes dramatically, it usually waits for supply to come... Web 2.0 is alive and is here to stay!

Comments

[Allan]

I've been following TechCrunch's pronouncements very closely over the last few days. I too respect Michael Arrington's achievements and I believe he's a great service to his readers and also technology entrepreneurs, but I'm trying to stay immune to the gloom and doom.

I am however looking for that extreme gloom because that's a time of opportunity. Are you feeling gloomy or do you see opportunity as I do?

[Wallen's]

There are always opportunities. The difference is that in a downturn you need to look beyond the obvious to build a business (and get financing)hence more innovative ideas are required. Thus does companies that are created during these period tend to be more innovative on average.