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Category: venture capital

There’s Money, and then there’s Money

dollars

Of course, it’s cheaper to start a web app company these days. But certain kinds of companies still require serious start up money. Mark Andreessen makes the point nicely when he calls for all companies after his should no longer receive funding because we’re in a bubble and no one needs money to do a start up anyway. But from what I hear, working under a VC in a start up environment still kinda sucks. Kinda like owing money to the mob.

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A Shorter Distance to Fall

Venture capitalists are wondering what it means when the cost of creating a Web start up goes so low that they lose relevance. More start ups created faster mean more exploration, more ideas and failing faster. And failure no longer means crashing down from a great height, it’s a shorter distance to fall. Paul Graham invoked the questioning with his musing on The Future of the Web Startup. Value and power has moved from money to creativity.

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Web 4.0: The Official Definition

Small Electronic Safe

Jason Calacanis has provided us with the official definition for Web 3.0 — smart people + Web 2.0 technology, a recipe that amazingly corresponds to his own Mahalo project. People around the blog-o-sphere were up in arms, gnashing their teeth, no one had realized that it was time to define Web 3.0. Bloggers quickly polished up their definitions, counter-definitions or attacks. Some claimed to have defined Web 3.0 sooner and pointed to prior art.

But when the din resided, they asked me, although we’re not sure what Web 3.0 is, and we’re not sure why it makes sense to assign numbers to the Web— what is Web 4.0? Surely if we are going to invest our blood and treasure in the Web, we should associate ourselves with the highest possible number.

So here it is, the official definition of Web 4.0: It’s Web 2.0 mashup/api/services technology + user-asserted identity + really private, important personal information. Smart people are in there somewhere, but really— that approach is soooo Web 3.0. You may ask, can we see any of these Web 4.0 companies? Sure, there are a few starting to emerge, take a look at: Microsoft’s HealthVault, whatever Google’s Health initiative turns out to be and on the financial side, things like Mint and CakeFinancial. Although on the financial side these companies aren’t really 4.0 yet. Look for a vault that contains all your financial data which the vendors with whom you do business will be obliged to deliver to you. You’ll be putting the digital media that you own in there as well. Oh, and throw Doc Searl’s idea about Vendor Relationship Management in there as well, you’ll store your VRM prefs there as well. Stuff you are, stuff you own, data about stuff you own, stuff you want, and of course, your attention data. But it’s gotta be secure and it’s gotta solve the identity problem.

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Google Apps: Classic Innovator’s Dilemna

I suppose this has been noted before, but Microsoft Office overserves its users. It has too many features that no one uses. It has features that no one even knows about. If an MS Word feature falls in the woods, and no one hears it, does it make a sound? This is a classic Innovator’s Dilemna.

It’s easy to say that Google apps is not as good as Microsoft Office. But that’s an answer to the wrong question. The question is: is it good enough, for a lot less money. The folks at CapGemini seem to think so. It’ll cost a company $50 per year per employee for Google Apps. Microsoft will counter with Microsoft Live, but they don’t what to cannibalize their own product. Which means they leave the field open to Google Apps and Zoho. Speaking of Zoho, you’d think Yahoo or somebody would buy them.

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