Make a list of 10 absolutely fabulous web products that you love. Now draw a line through all of them that came to market as the first mover. I'll bet you don't draw a single line.
As long as businesses want more money and want to save more time, there is always room for b2b products that can demonstrate good ROI.
On the consumer side, there's certainly plenty of room. I just read that Meebo is reaching 30 million people per month. Twitter is functionally brand new and kicking ass.
The good news is that most consumer sites transition from a "providing value" stance (in the early days) to an "extracting value" stance (in the later days). Later stage consumer sites add more advertising, do more biz dev deals, and overall muddy up their value prop. Meanwhile, the next round of consumer startups leap into the fray with a nimble team, the next rev of web technologies, and a desire to provide value and build something that's better than the big guys. Compuserve, Prodigy, AOL, Friendster, MySpace, Facebook... They are/were all on the same road.
Make a list of 10 absolutely fabulous web products that you love. Now draw a line through all of them that came to market as the first mover. I'll bet you don't draw a single line.
As long as businesses want more money and want to save more time, there is always room for b2b products that can demonstrate good ROI.
On the consumer side, there's certainly plenty of room. I just read that Meebo is reaching 30 million people per month. Twitter is functionally brand new and kicking ass.
The good news is that most consumer sites transition from a "providing value" stance (in the early days) to an "extracting value" stance (in the later days). Later stage consumer sites add more advertising, do more biz dev deals, and overall muddy up their value prop. Meanwhile, the next round of consumer startups leap into the fray with a nimble team, the next rev of web technologies, and a desire to provide value and build something that's better than the big guys. Compuserve, Prodigy, AOL, Friendster, MySpace, Facebook... They are/were all on the same road.