The New Rules For Web 2.0 Startups

There are some interesting new trends on the Web, and it's the nature of a phrase like Web 2.0 that adheres to them, says Paul Graham. He finds that a lot is different now from 1998. Web sites look different. Startups operate differently. People use the Web in different ways. The changes were gradual, but if you have a gradual change of sufficient magnitude, it starts to become a different worldSome CEO’s of Web 2.O Companies respond to questions ranging from revenue models, marketing, competition and a whole host of issues. Interesting to read – given my call for a reality check there but the enthusiasm, initiative and energy seen in the web 2.0 ecosystem is indeed amazing. This is an interesting set of response :

Question 1: How does (or how will) your company make money?
- Browster (Peter Milener): Paid search in its various forms - PPC, search traffic, comp shopping, search clouds, etc. - delivered in a valuable way to users.
- JotSpot (Joe Kraus): We’re a subscription business model. The hosted version of JotSpot is used primarily by small to midsize businesses. We’ve got over 2000 paying companies and 30,000 paying users. In addition, we’ve got a downloadable version of JotSpot for use by larger enterprises. This is also sold on a subscription basis.
- Texasgigs (Mike Orren): Local advertising. We will sell on “traditional” web models like CPM. Not much CPC, because a click usually isn’t the right metric for local. We have a model whereby users can register a credit card (or multiples) with us in order to get instant discounts on purchases at our local advertisers, as well as a rebate to the local charity of your choice. We can then take ad revenue on a pay-per-swipe basis.
- Piczo (Sonya Prybutok): Today we are based on an advertising model with plans to diversify our revenue streams as we grow.
- ProductWiki (Omar Ismail): In the short term 100% of revenue will come from price comparison advertisements on our product pages.
And for some comic relief…
- Rapleaf (Auren Hoffman): Selling pet supplies

No doubt - there are some smart people quoted herein - my views remain unaltered. I just finished reading this - Readers can draw their own conclusions.