alarm:clock

News & Updates - Thursday, February 9, 2006

Web 2.0 Roll-up

We searched on "Web 2.0 roll-up" and came away dry. It seems to us that some enterprising techies and some VCs could assemble a dozen or more Web 2.0 companies, hire a slick UI designer to mash them up, and then create a portal out of the box. This 2.0 roll-up might not rival Google, Yahoo or MSN but could certainly surpass Looksmart and maybe even AskJeeves. We have heard whispers about this type of endeavor but it doesn't seem to be part of an open discussion.

Our beef with Web 2.0 hype is that so many of the companies that fall in this category (we're not even sure it actually is a category) have limited ambitions and growth-management skills. Features are being launched as if they are companies. There is way too much excitement over $12M acquisitions of modest Web 2.0 start-ups by Yahoo and Google. So why not make a run at creating another portal? After all, it wasn't that long ago that Alta Vista and Infoseek were hot portals - and there will doubtlessly be another big-time portal launched in the next few years.

A Web 2.0 Roll-up might start with Technorati for blog search, Rolyo for personalized search, and add features like Zimbra's calendar, a video search like YouTube or Revver, an IM app like Meebo, a comment tool like Digg, plus other doo-dads that you might find on the TechCrunch Index.