Future of Web Apps Summit, SF 2006 (Day 2)

Michael Arrington from http://www.techcrunch.com

“What’s next for web apps: building tomorrow’s Flickr”

(note I will have pictures of Michael’s Winner’s and Loser’s soon..)

Shared Attributes of Winners

  • Passion for what they are doing
  • Doing Something Extraordinary (Purple Cow)
  • Removing serious friction
  • Great Founder Dynamics (“higher slow, fire fast”)
  • Never Raised Big Money or Raised it After They Won
  • Perfect Revenue Model Not Required
  • and…launched their company with a post on TechCrunch (hahaha!)

Shared Attributes of Losers

  • Poor Founder/Team choices
  • Lifestyle/Ego Entrepreneurs
  • Raised Too Much Money
  • Spent Too Much Money
  • Don’t Over business-planned
  • Forgot about scaling (Friendster)

What Server Platform? What Client Platform

  • PHP = popular server
  • AJAX = popular client
  • Sleeper = Adobe Apollo

Market Saturation

  • Avoid
    • Social Networking
    • Social Bookmarks
    • Video
    • Photos
    • Blogging/podcasting platforms
    • Portals
    • Feed Readers
  • Big Potential
    • Platforms
    • Desktop Apps
    • Office Efficiency
    • Cloud Storage –> Microsoft, Google, Box.net, Omnidrive coming soon
    • Identity
    • Developer Tools
    • Market Destruction
    • ENTERPRISE = important