TechForm : Advertising Business Model Can’t Work for Everyone

I got an invite toe Techform a little event where a few of the up and coming web 2.0 sites showcased their goods. Drinks were cheap, Tron was playing in the background, and some kind of rock fireplace made me feel comfortable to start grilling the representatives. I come from a marketing and SEO background and I realized that all these new companies are springing up all have the same problem. They all think the advertising business model is the only way to make money online. How did Google manage to brain wash people into thinking that everything has to be free, but by adding ads on the side of your page you will make millions?

I do not know who to blame, facebook or youtube for the ridiculous flood of web 2.0 web sites that have been springing up. Somehow, these new companies seem to be missing the big picture of why those sites were so amazing. YouTube is a vertical search engine (video) with contributors who you don’t even have to pay. Facebook, has access into everyones personal life and has been databasing every demographic and interests about you. Now lets take a look at some of the sites that I checked out and why they will fail.

CareSquare - Although the girl who was there was a bonafied MILF, I don’t think she had the first clue about marketing her product. When I told her about competitors or how she is promoting her site she seemed to be clueless. Nanny ratings is a good idea, but a good idea isn’t enough. It needs to be executed properly.

GoldMail - I’ll be honest I didn’t really talk to the rep, but the idea seemed simple. You send video and presentations and you could put voice over them. I was like OK??? Thats it???

Involver - Basically a Yelp for events. Although yelp has events they haven’t really taken off. Great idea, but unfortunately its all built in Java. Meaning, search engines will not spider your site and your gonna miss out on a huge opportunity. Also, during the demo the thing crapped out LOL.

Mosio - You text a message and “real” people answer. I text “Where can I get a happy ending in San Francisco” The reply was quite clever “Theres a local library with a fairy tale section, it’s full of happy endings”

OnMyList - 43 things ??? I don’t get it, but they haven’t implemented nofollow so I give it a month before it gets abused by spammers.

Pinger - Worst idea ever. Apparently you leave a message on your phone which sends a text to all your friends. They have to read the text and call another number to hear your message. WTF??? This is retarded.

Reactee - Wear a shirt with a cause with a text number on it. People text it and get back another message. Sweet… NOT!

ugcDb - I met this guy Artie last March where he mentioned this project. I am excited to see he finally has a product. It looked pretty good his only job is get more eye balls on that site. Again SEO??? maybe??

None of the people I talked to have thought about SEO or any other marketing besides getting their buddies to sign up. They all thought that advertising is their golden savior. Half of them had freaking AdSense on their sites.

Conclusion: Web 2.0 is restarted and will cause another bubble if people don’t cut the crap and start making value added products rather than another advertising platform