Did David Sifry Pop the Web 2.0 Bubble?
There’s barrelfuls of chatter to spare today stemming from the announcement that David Sifry is stepping down as CEO of Technorati, and that the blog search engine/portal is laying off eight employees. That, coupled with news that PodTech CEO John Furrier is stepping down is causing speculation about where the web 2.0 cycle is at – pre-pop, popping, or pop-as-overhyped. Jason Calacanis does a good job of framing the last three “down-and-up” cycles, 2005-2007 being a largely up-up-and-away period.
Mike Arrington’s characterization of Sifry’s goodbye message is pretty hilarious:
me….me…me…and oh yeah we layed off eight people.
Sifry also refers to himself as a “great leader†in the fourth paragraph of his post.
Mathew Ingram concurs, writing that “he certainly seems to have gotten the hang of the cold-blooded CEO dismissal message.”
What I’m hoping is that the Internet economy will see a soft landing over the next year, with an inevitable shakeout in oversaturated spaces, and with continued growth in companies that provide value for people. A lot may ride on the overall health of the advertising industry, although as we’re seeing, the trend in ad spending is moving rapidly away from traditional media and toward the online world.
David Dalka looks at a potentially post-Technorati landscape and runs down other blog search engines, such as Ask, Google, and Icerocket. My personal take is that there is yet to be the “Google” of the blog search market (and that includes Google blog search!). Technorati is actually just about the best at present, and I like the introduction of its “authority” system, though how it works is somewhat mysterious to me.
BlogStorm and a bunch of others point out that Technorati’s troubles have accelerated as Google has been eating away at its traffic. Mark Evans makes the interesting counter-argument that while Technorati’s traffic and revenue growth has been “solid… it’s simply not sexy to potential suitors.”
