What causeth such visions? Nevermind the recession, here's my Dotcom 1.0 crash signs that the slowdown is nigh:
Dotcom companies are reorganizing, refocusing, and reducing. Poor Joost, once the emerging video on demand darlings, now reduced to B2B technology services. MySpace, the social media juggernaut, just laid off 30% of their staff and is shutting down whole countries.
Acquired dotcom companies are discarded like an expensive sweater that can't be resold on eBay. Yahoo has been quietly phasing out all kinds of acquisitions recently. eBay and AOL are setting up fire garage sales. Microsoft is looking to sell Razorfish.
There aren't any new dotcoms taking their place. The VC Guys have put away their wallets.
But hey, at least Viral Advertising is a full time position. Although leveraging Twitter for business purposes can also get you fired (sleep well, old marketer, your stagnant corporate methods are not yet dethroned by young punks!)
For those of you at the remaining Dotcom institutions; here's a couple signs that things may not be as good as they seem:
- Freelancers stop getting paid on time
- Delivery guy stops refilling the soda machine
- Empty moving boxes pile up in the mailroom/delivery bays
- Frequent messages from IT encouraging you to back up your files
- Senior management starts going to all day meetings and avoiding public gathering spots in the office (kitchens, cafeterias, any open areas lacking 3 immediate points of exit)
- Techcrunch just added you to their deadpool
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1 comment:
You nailed this one. If you follow the money you usually have an answer. VC guys holding onto their cash means they arent confident on the return, which means sour outlook at least in the short term.
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