In case you needed another reason to be despondent
After listening for a decade to “mainstream” journalists gripe about when this Internet thing was going to start making money, here’s the word from the Financial Times.
The shortage of revenue among social networks, blogs and other “social media” sites that put user-generated content and communications at their core has persisted despite more than four years of experimentation aimed at turning such sites into money-makers. Together with the US economic downturn and a shortage of initial public offerings, the failure has damped the mood in internet start-up circles.
“There is going to be a shake-out here in the next year or two” as many Web 2.0 companies disappear, said Roger Lee, a partner at Battery Ventures.
And just as newsrooms are starting to get the idea that social media is something we should be paying attention to. Sigh.