I’m ba-ack…
After a many month blogging sabbatical, I’m considering giving this thing a try again.
It’s still the same issues that perplex me about the so-called “new economy” 2.0. Of course the first new economy turned out to be a bubble, as most of us expected. But this one has a different feel to it. Investors are not throwing money willy-nilly at every company having “.com” in its title.Observers seem to have a better understanding of the medium; of its benefits, but also its limitations. No, there’s something about this that’s more realistic.
But the more I think of it. the less I think is really new. It’s as if the few good ideas from the first internet wave have managed to survive and thrive. The bad ones – the ones that were making a great deal of noise, but really had no idea of if and how they were ever going to make money, never mind a profit – have disappeared. The few that remain, Google, Yahoo, Amazon, Red Hat, etc. are the ones that did have a business model, and are showing that it wasn’t all hubris.
But is that all there is to it? I mean, is it just a question of some novel business models made possible by the internet, that were lost in a sea of frenzy, are only now coming into their own? I do think there’s much food for thought here, and certainly an interesting topic for investigation, but I don’t think it tells the whole story.
To really appreciate the new wave that’s upon us, we really need to understand the broader social phenomena I alluded to in may last post. More on this a little later…
