Technologies To Watch Fail In 2009

An anonymous reader writes "Microblogs, targeted advertising, social news, online video, streaming music, and enterprise social networking are among the technologies that will probably fail in 2009, according to a new report from Internet Evolution. The report cites revenue figures, failed or non-existent business models, and an overabundance of 'me-too' start-ups, combined with the current recession, as reasons the aforementioned technologies might not survive the year. 'Whereas the past couple of years have been defined by overcrowding and overfunding in the Web 2.0 space, and an onslaught of startups with no purpose or plan to make money, this recessionary year is likely to see more due diligence on the part of VCs, allowing strong companies and technologies to emerge from the smoldering pile of dead ones.'"

Comments

Re:Not technologies that will fail

[stoolpigeon]

Right now on twitter I'm following @bashcookbook and I get a bash tip every day. I also follow @thaumatrope and read little 140 character slivers of science fiction stories. @Outshine calls theirs prose poetry and it is all with a speculative fiction type spin. @oreillymedia keeps me up to date on oreilly stuff including conferences, web casts, new books and things they have on-line like blog posts and interviews.
 
This may not be your cup of tea - but for a lot of people it is a very popular way to receive and share information. The other people I follow are individuals who are pretty well known (Wil Wheaton, Jon Scalzi, Tim O'Reilly, etc.) and I'm interested in things like what they are doing, what they are reading, stuff like that.
 
Does all that matter? I'm not sure, it all depends on context. But to me personally it matters right now. There is also the fact that now that I have a number of friends who are also on twitter we are able to use it as a way of keeping in touch. Of course we could use instant messaging or email - but we don't. If we need to say something longer we use another method - but throughout the day twitter is usually enough.
 
Oh - and with the ability to search through all of this - it becomes an index of sorts as many microblog posts point to other places on the web. That's another feature that I believe brings real value. And I know that this is also available in other platforms - but what I've seen happen is that many people tend to microblog much more freely than they will do a regular blog post. So in the end it will get more information out there.
 
I've been thinking about this a lot in the last few weeks - which may be obvious. I just put in a request to host a project at source forge for a microblogging tool I'd like to build. So there's my bias. I'm pretty excited about what I see as some cool possibilities. Of course not everyone will be on board with this. It may never grow beyond a niche thing. But I remember the first time I was on facebook and thought "What is the point and who is ever going to do this?" Of course now just about everyone I know is on facebook.