Are The 'Me Too' Websites Democratising the Web?

We just got back into the office from the Easter holidays and found ourselves languishing in a state of boredom, unmotivated even by the recovery in the general feeling in the market. So we did what any other self respecting person would do and had a look around the web for some videos.

There is a financial theme in here, as one of things that we do is invest in small companies, especially Internet companies. We have been fascinated by the growth of social networks because of the future capacity of these sites to change the world of advertising as we know it. Facebook, for example, with its in-house targetted ads system is showing the way when it comes to the 'new' advertising market.

We have tested the system out and you can get scarily close on your advertising targets because of the data that users share on the site. For example, if you want to advertise to 25-35 year olds interested in online trading and who live in the UK.. you can... 50 year olds interested in pensions? No problem it's all good.. The power of this 'human database' is literally mind blowing.

However, we wonder whether a lot of the big sites can continue to dominate. The problem for a number of these sites is that there are planty of talented people on the web who can take a concept and make it better. FaceBook itself was not a revolution, there were hundreds of social networks online for college members (which is how Facebook started) but the young Mark Zukerman managed to get something right and the site became a phenomenon, what is to stop the very same problem of 'me too' happening to Facebook itself?

You see when we were researching this article (er .. hmmm) by looking for videos on the web, we came across a site called YouReportSport.com. This awesome sports video sharing isn't more than a few weeks old judging by the small amount of vidoes and members, however, we are already hooked, one, because its cool, and two because its in Switzerland.

This site is playing on the marketing ploy of being niche, the site only has sports videos, but it also intends to have the site as a destination for fans to report on their sports experiences. This is something we like to see, it is all very well listening to stuffy reporters but hearing it from the guy who was there on the ground, so to speak, is an angle I would like to see.

The fun thing about the web (and the problem when you come to value a business for investment) is that pretty much any site can be copied and uploaded, all it takes is a great idea (or an improvemnet on an old one) and some balls. We are also seeing that when a site becomes mainstream like YouTube, for example, the whole world comes knocking at your door for royalties on songs, copyright on videos etc, So YouTube is reportedly changing the site to accomodate advertisers through making the site more TV oriented etc. 'The death of YouTube' as the video is entitled, may be a bit strong, but you can see how users could migrate to something else quickly.

Personally we like the idea of more niche sites like youreportsport.com as it gives a community a little more ownership of the site... and let's face it that is how YouTube grew ito the monster it is now in the first place.

Google Ventures Stalks Start Ups

Here we go.. total world domination. Google announced on Monday that it is creating a venture fund. 'Google Ventures' is expected to invest up to $100mn over the next twelve months, according to the New York Times. The guy in charge will be David Drummond, investments will be vetted by William Maris and Rich Milner, a co-founder of Android who Google acquired in 2005.

The fund is looking at clean tech, life sciences and, of course, Internet related entities.

“Economically, times are tough, but great ideas come when they will,” Google said in its announcement of the new venture fund on its official company blog. “If anything, we think the current downturn is an ideal time to invest in nascent companies that have the chance to be the “next big thing,” and we’ll be working hard to find them.”

Google Ventures has already made two investments: Silver Spring Networks, a company that makes technology to help manage electric grids, and Pixazza, which links online images with related products that can be purchased. Google declined to say how much it invested in those companies.

As much as this is news it is just a formalisation of Google's investing role which has seen it hoover up many companies over the 10 years it has been in business.

It is bizzare to think that Google has only been around for the last ten years. My son who, like any other teenager, is an Internet whizz, said to me yesterday "if you had invested in Google when you were my age, you would very rich now". When I explained that Google had been around only since 1999, he chortled (you know, that laugh when your kids are really saying 'man you are so old and out of touch') and said "Dad, listen.. Google is the Internet, I think it has been around a lot longer than that"...

He is factually incorrect of course, but the addition of this venture fund is just the next step in the total domination of the Net that is Google.

Good or bad you have to admire them for their flawless execution of being branded in the minds of kids as a company that is the Internet.