Mark Evans

Now, Web 2.0 is Done Like Dinner..or Gone to the Dogs

So, we're all trying to read the chicken entrails for the future of Web 2.0 and whether there's a bubble on the horizon. Well, here's another reason to believe it's the beginning of the end: Mary Meeker will among the keynote speakers at a Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco next month. During the dot-com boom, the Morgan Stanley analyst (for more than 10 years, which proves, if anything, she's a survivor) was the “Queen of the Net”. Along with Henry Blodget, Meeker was a huge dot-com believer even as the house of cards began to disintegrate. Of course, everyone's got to make a living - and Meeker doesn't appear to be afraid to put the past behind and re-invent herself. For example, she jumped hard on the Chinese's Internet story. So, it makes sense for Meeker to align herself with Web 2.0 and the Internet services movement. Of course, this could signal trouble ahead because Wall St. analysts usually want publicly-traded companies to cover. This could mean some more IPOs - the absence of which has played a key role in keeping the Web 2.0 landscape from bubbling over.
Update: Want more evidence there's a bunch of Web 2.0 whackiness happening. Dogster - the social networking site for dogs - has raise $1-million from a group of angel investors. VentureBeat reports that many people are pretending to be dogs and writing little diaries. Hilarious! Weird, but hilarious.