There's a world outside San Francisco
This post by Matt Webb is worth pondering for those of us who are far away from all the Web 2.0 action. Matt wrote that "The Web is San Francisco circa 2001, writ large." He explained:
"The Web's been coasting since 2001. It consists of that which started in SF and happened to adapt to the larger ecosystem, and that's it. But since 2001, there are millions and millions more people online--and they're pretty much uncatered for. They have no native services."
He then highlighted some opportunities that exist for "native services" - for example in the huge new market that is China:
"Don't make the mistake of thinking they're just the long tail. The mass market is as differentiated along as many axes as any other market, including our own geek market. And don't think that we'll know what they want without working with them.
Actually, don't even think of them as "them": I never realised I was a "them" until I went to California."
It's still my dream to go to San Francisco, because it's the center of the world as far as Web business goes. So I really should be there. Nevertheless, Matt's post reminded me that there's a whole world of opportunity on the Web - if you keep your eyes and mind open.
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# 1
# 2
Check out Cyworld, which Marc Cantor has been obssessed with. Cyworld is a social networking site, in which you can not only make friends, but also listen to streaming music, buy avatar characters -- yeah, your favorite :), write blogs, put up your pictures after pictures, search for people based on various fields, etc. It's even being used as a PR platform for many celebrities and politicians.
The site has more than 12 million members registered, and about half of them active. For a great number of teenagers, this is where most of them spend hours and hours every day. Contents are all user-generated, making most of the sort-of DIY culture. None of the services such as Orkut or Frienster are anywhere close to cyworld when it comes to UI and the range of functions provided. But then, it might've been possible only in Korea, whose broadband penetration is highest in the world, I believe.
Speaking of broadband in Korea, there have been a great number of services that flourished in Korea first even before it reached SF. Examples will start with music and video streaming services. In fact, we've had music streaming services better than mp3 quality already for over 4 years or so. The biggest one, bugsmusic, also boasts over 10 million users and was even ranked top 10 in the Alexa search few years ago. These are impressive numbers given Korea has total population of about 50 million. Ohmynews is another great example of web journalism business model which many Americans envy (including Dan Gillmor).
Those services really never got spotlight that they deserve, probably due to 1) cultural differences (i.e. those services won't necessarily translate into good business models in the u.s.), and 2) broadband wasn't there in the u.s yet. But, Yes, as you said, there's a whole world of opportunity on the Web :)
# 3
No time like the present! Round trip flights from here to NZ were going for $800 not too long ago, advertised around the time of the election with posters that said "defectors welcome." The housing situation isn't a total disaster like in 2000, either.
# 4
Richard,
I am not sure if Blogger lets you do trackback. If they do I certainly don't know how to use it yet. With that in mind wanted to let you know that I've written a follow up article at:
http://entreprexplorer.blogspot.com/2005/06/world-inside-san-francisco.html
Anyways I appreciated both your thoughts and Matt's.
# 5
That should be:
The World Inside San Francisco"
# 6
haha, this is starting to feel like the scene from Swingers. Let me try this again. As I can't seem to get a link into the comments and the link above is cut off, for me at least, here is the complete url in two parts:
http://entreprexplorer.blogspot.com/2005
/06/world-inside-san-francisco.html
Sorry about that. :)
# 7
Bud, re "finding light weight business models that work so that you can make the web happen outside of San Francisco." I agree and I think we're beginning to see that happen (e.g. the fact I can do virtual writing/research work for people in the US or Britain is an encouraging sign - from my pov definitely!). Perhaps the key is for Silicon Valley VCs to branch out and do more investing in the rest of the world.
Danny, re "Those services really never got spotlight that they deserve". I totally agree! In fact a couple of weeks ago I read a fascinating profile of Cyworld Korea in my local New Zealand edition of Computerworld. btw I see it as part of my blog 'brief' to not just focus on Web 2.0 in the US, but to explore other parts of the world too. I think I need to do much more of that...
Michal, thanks for the encouragement. If only the flights *from* NZ were as cheap as that! :-)
Jared, thanks for the link - I read your post and found myself nodding my head in agreement. btw there's not much room for URLs in my comments section - the downside of a 3-column, fixed width layout. This is on my list of design things to address, whenever I get a chance to do a re-design.
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© Copyright 2003-2005 Richard MacManus
It strikes me that the central issue is finding light weight business models that work so that you can make the web happen outside of San Francisco.