Web 2.0 - Ready for Unplugging?

Is Consolidation and Collaboration the Next Phase of Web 2.0? 

Web 2.0 may just have a case of, for lack of a better term, constipation. Over the last several weeks I have noticed a decrease in real innovation like we saw at the beginning of the year. There is news out there, but for the most part it is just about all the companies jockeying around for position, or in my opinion direction.

I get the feeling that “big money” is watching this round of Web 2.0 players in order to see what is going to fly and what is not. I guess this would be the smart move, but if it is true there is some lack of commitment there. I don't know about you, but I get a little weary of discussing the same old news with different players and uniforms. It is kind of like watching a basketball game where the scoreboard is gone and only the people wearing the uniforms change.

I read a very insightful article a few minutes ago by Robert Scoble, which helped me put some of this into perspective. He makes some very good points, especially in regard to what he calls “consolidation”. There are so many small startup entities out there striving for the gold ring, and many of them are just going to fail. Investors are going to want results for their money and market constraints are putting time pressure on these innovative, but bogged down companies.

Scoble says that the “innovation funnel is pinched closed”, which I found to be a great term to support my “watcher” theory. Web 2.0 and above is certainly here to stay, the only question is: “How will it look tomorrow?” Scoble wonders if there are entities out there waiting to ‘scarf up” some of these great little innovations to combine into a larger entity for community and revenue. I think this is where all the innovation and startup money has been headed all along (even if they did not know it).

Some of my best stories have contained a rather “unveiled prodding” for companies to collaborate for some ideal Web 2.0 community, and what we may be seeing now is a necessity driven variable towards that eventual end. Even in my interview with Jimmy Wales I asked about collaboration towards a superior result, which he and others are obviously for. Some of Scoble's readers took issue with his comments about this subject, but I believe he is right on the money as far as the little stagnation period we are seeing.

Personally, I would love to see many of these startups headed into a future with one vision. If the right combinations of startups are obtained by the right company or companies, we might see something way beyond MySpace and Google in the long run. Like some of Robert's readers, I hate to see great thinking and innovation lost because of bad timing for market entry. If all the visitors, testers and members of these startups were combined, the possibility for revenue and growth could be enormous. Make no mistake about it, monetary support has to be in place for these great ideas to thrive. Maybe I should get some investors together to look into the bean counting of this type collaboration? You got the scoop here folks!