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News and commentary from the RSS and OPML community.

Most Web 2.0 companies will fail and I'll tell you why. Whenever a new Web 2.0 product is released, I usually pop off an email or comment on their blog or other similar correspondence asking a question or two about their services. The vast majority of the time, I never receive a response. Those that respond, tend to be in business 2 years later and those that don't respond, are AWL within 2 years. Effort goes a long way. Examples follow...

  • I once told a Web 2.0 company that their AdWords ads on Google search were 404. I figure they are paying $100s per day on AdWords, yet all the clicks go to a 404 webpage. A few months later, I noticed it again and sent them another email. I actually had to send them a screen capture, because they didn't believe me. Another few months later again and their AdWords ad is still 404. Anybody want to guess how much they've blown on AdWords?
  • I setup an AdWords campaign for some friend running a Web 2.0 company. I gave them $100s of hits for no charge to show them how they could benefit from AdWords. The idea was that they were gonna track the conversion of those clicks and determine if it was worth it. In the end, they never bothered setting up the tracking and the whole experiment was a waster.
  • Recently, I was present at a demo of a new Web 2.0 product. I left a couple comments on their blog about how I could use their product. The comments remain unanswered weeks later.
  • Another startup ran a contest with a free iPod giveaway. I won the contest, but didn't get the iPod till 9 months later and after a half dozen emails wondering Where's my iPod?
  • A particular Web 2.0 junky has been podcasting over and over about how he's making the same mistakes as his first Web 2.0 startup. When's he gonna learn.

It's little clues like this that tell me which Web 2.0 startups are gonna fail and which are gonna succeed.

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Insight into my soul or the Web 2.0 startup community?

Randy

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Hey, I am starting up a pseudo web 2.0 community ( more of a publishing site ).

I would say this: I will tell you the site in about 2 weeks, and then check on it in about a month. Tell me what you think.

I'm not giving away prizes, but I'll buy you a beer if you live in Boston.
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