"Entertainment-lawyer-turned-VC Dennis Miller of Spark Capital warned that there are already investors who are becoming “roadkill” and there will be more roadkill ahead. George Zachary of Charles River Ventures generally agreed that there aren’t a lot of Google-like opportunities in video now that will pay mega-dividends to early investors. Instead, Zachary thinks the money isn’t in the content but in the social networks that are built around content.

Mike Hirshland of Polaris Venture Partners was more optimistic about the possibility for at least a few companies to reach the critical mass needed to really take off — and to pay off for VCs who’ve taken a chance on them."

Other NewTeeVee Live coverage on last100:

• NewTeeVee Live: Brief Q&A with YouTube’s Steve Chen
• NewTeeVee Live: Can the network cope with Internet TV?
• NewTeeVee Live: VCs predict an uncertain future for Internet TV startups
• NewTeeVee Live: MTV exec proposes antidote to piracy
• NewTeeVee Live: AT&T’s vision for IPTV

Fighting Free With Free

Clearly, this is also a program that is meant to create more goodwill towards Microsoft in the developer community. For a lot of tech startups, running Windows is often not even a consideration, as they are already building their software on top of free software anyway. As Om Malik points out, the idea of using Microsoft software often didn't even cross his mind when he started his business.

It is good to see that Microsoft is trying to gain some market here. However, it seems that Microsoft is trying to fight the free software movement by giving away its own programs, while a lot of developers prefer software that is not just free, but also open source.

I learned some new terms too - like "vomiting in the data center" :-)

Interesting to note that Scott has a new startup called Ookles, while his old company Feedster is busy doing damage control over at TechCrunch. Incidentally, Feedster does have a point when they say their business is RSS-based and so it's not quite the same as Technorati - something we went over back in July 2005 when I did my own Alexa charts damnation post. All the same, I think Feedster would help their cause if they promoted some of the business arrangements they have - e.g. didn't they do a deal with AOL in June last year? What's the latest on that and other RSS-based business that Feedster does?

"Sponsors are paying thousands of dollars for space that we're giving to Showoffs for free," wrote event producer Francisco Dao. "If you're a startup who wants exposure, there's no reason not to throw your hat in the ring."

Showoff startups will be selected by a panel of five judges, including Tubefilter co-founder Brady Brim-DeForest, investor Neil Patel, PR 2.0 publisher Brian Solis, Mixergy founder Andrew Warner, and venture capitalist Mark Suster.

Interested startups can apply on the Twiistup website.

Aspiring kiwi startups are invited to apply to be part of the TV show. The TV series will select 10 startups and put them through 3 months of challenges.

As reported on the NZ Herald, Start-UP Media says the focus is on finding startups with an international focus:

"We're looking for companies with an international focus from day 1. The minimum entry requirements will be that they will have a product in development or beta phase however we may make an exception for someone that has an exceptional idea supported by market validation."

We here at RWW fully support the notion of Web innovation and success happening on an international scale. While the hub of Web technology is still Silicon Valley, this TV show aims to encourage aspiring kiwi entrepreneurs to make the first step - and the best of them will be promoted over in the Valley.

As for which American Idol judge I will be... I think it's fair to say I'm not nasty enough to be Simon Cowell. I'd like to think I'm not the other extreme either (Paula), so I guess that makes me Randy Jackson! I like Randy, so I can live with that ("it was pitchy for me, dawg"). The other judges are Tim Norton from PlanHQ (an online business planning startup) and Rod Drury from Xero (an online accounting app with global ambitions).

What I like about the Crunchies is that it's all about startups and innovation. We're aiming to recognize things that are important to startups - web innovation, best bootstrapping, best use of viral marketing, and so on. There are also product type categories - e.g. mobile, video.

So how can you participate?

1) Nominate your favorites

Starting today through Wednesday, December 12 at midnight pst, nominate the companies and products you believe most deserve industry recognition for achievements made in 2007.

2) Vote on finalists

The Crunchies Committee will choose five finalist companies for each award category based on the nominations submitted by the community. Voting will start Monday, December 13 and will be open for approximately one month (just give us enough time to engrave the awards).

3) Join the ceremony!

The Awards Ceremony will take place on Friday, January 18 at the Herbst Theater across the street from City Hall in San Francisco. It's an elegant, old world theater with 900 seats that will help give the awards the air of importance we believe they deserve. Seating will be reserved for finalist companies and event sponsors. A limited number of tickets will be available for press and the general public. Stay tuned for more details on the evening festivities.

So start nominating the startups you think deserve recognition; and feel free to use the comments of this post to shout them out - or promote yourself even, but you may want to give some reasons ;-) You can also grab a badge from here to promote the event.

"...I think the talent wars will be good for cities outside of the Valley, as companies look elsewhere to find smart people. It's already possible to stay connected and contribute from almost anywhere in the world."

He mentions my New Zealand-based blog as an example of how people as far away as the other side of the planet can contribute. I'd like to add that I actually earn my living as a consultant/contractor for various Silicon Valley companies - even though I live in New Zealand. I do analysis, research and writing work on Web 2.0, Social Media and RSS topics.

Dan also said that "we'll see an increasing number of important startups based outside of the Valley over the coming few years." Again, I think this is a trend to watch out for. Not only in big countries like China, but in very small countries like my own. I'm certainly keen to create and participate in Web 2.0 opportunities from my part of the world. You only need to look at a company like NZ-based Eurekster, creator of Swikis, to see that it can be done.

On that note, recently Nat Torkington from O'Reilly set up a Google Group for New Zealand Web 2.0 people, called NZ 2.0. Ironically this was instigated after Silicon Valley's Mike Arrington referred a local kiwi company to me, which led me to send a group email to a bunch of kiwis, which led to Nat creating the Google Group. So if there are any kiwis reading this who want to be part of NZ 2.0, shoot me an email (readwriteweb AT gmail DOT com). It's all happening Down Under! :-)

"What do Beanie Babies, Pez Dispensers and troubled Internet companies have in common? They're all for sale on eBay."

eBay has become known as a quick and easy way to sell your startup, should you need to. Techcrunch has a nice phrase for this - the "eBay exit". USAToday notes that "more than 10 dot-coms" have recently put themselves up for auction on eBay. The paper says that Search engine DigForIt.com sold for $25,400 this month and SynapseLife, an online calendar and organizational site which Techcrunch wrote about, sold for $60,000 (it opened at $50k). Also Read/WriteWeb covered the eBay sale of Talkr in February this year, which sold for $50k all up. There are many more instances of ebay exits we could list. And there are other places where startups can sell themselves too, like SitePoint Marketplace (Josh Catone noted in January that Blogster went that route).

Indeed USAToday also recounts the tale of CrispAds auction, which unsuccessfully tried to sell on eBay. It had a minimum price of $90,000, but ended up without any bids. According to USAToday, months later the company sold via a broker for "a few hundred thousand dollars".

If you're one of the many companies recently to have sold on eBay, let us know in the comments how you felt the process went. Should other entrepreneurs look to eBay, or is a private brokerage sale the best bet?

"...I miss the days of 2004 when the class that includes Flickr, del.icio.us and others started. They really were about changing the web, not making a quick buck (they did so only because they added value). There are companies still out there like them. Twitter is one I believe takes this approach. Automattic (the company behind Wordpress) appears to be another. Dave Winer also shares this spirt. He creates services like NYTimes River because it's fun and he thinks it will add value to our lives (and he is right).

However, most of the rest of today's net startups are only after the almighty dollar and while that's capitalism, it saddens me because it has done little but breed hubris."
Emphasis ours

It'd be easy to agree with Steve on this. Indeed in my wrapup of the recent Web 2.0 Summit, I said it was 'steady as she goes' and lacking in innovative startups. Other than the semantic apps that presented at the Summit, there was little evidence of disruptive technologies. It was still a well-organized and enjoyable conference, but the cutting edge was absent.

But even considering the Web 2.0 Summit and 2007 so far, I'm inclined to disagree with Steve that the Web is being over-run by "the almighty dollar". There is innovation happening - and enjoyment. The Mobile 2.0 Conference I attended recently in San Francisco showed me there's a lot of innovative technology happening in the Mobile Web space. The shift to the Web of many big companies is also exciting (as is the experimentation with desktop technologies by online organizations). Partnerships are happening between web 2.0 startups and big tech companies. Social networks are showing signs of truly opening up (although slowly). Semantic apps are set to go mainstream. Utility computing is coming in a big way. Alternative search engines are nipping at Google's heels. There are opportunities for entrepreneurs in Attention, Intention and VRM businesses. Use of the Web for environmental and non-profit purposes is at an all-time high.

I could go on and on, but my point is that the Web is still changing - despite the seeming lack of new innovative startups (maybe we as bloggers just aren't uncovering enough of them?) and the 'steady as she goes' Web conferences. So I do push back on Steve's post in that respect. There's a lot of change happening on the Web; actually that is what Read/WriteWeb is all about, documenting and covering that change.

But tell us what you think, in the poll below. Are we, collectively as startups, organizations and media, still changing the Web? Also, please use the comments below to list startups or initiatives that you think are changing the Web.

Image: Brouhaha (Jonathan)

Check out the whole set of slides below, for an overview of Mobile Web startups and big company activity (e.g. Google acquiring GrandCentral in July this year):

Note: for a full-page view, go to the Slideshare page and then click "full" in the bottom-right corner.

How will we be involved? Read/WriteWeb will be sponsoring some of the award categories that most align with our brand, and we will be involved in category selection and the ceremony. Nominations and voting will start soon at the Crunchies site. There will be a real-world award ceremony and party to announce the awards - date and venue tbc (it'll be in San Francisco though).

Most of all, the awards and ceremony is about celebrating Web startups - all the hard work they put in and innovation they create. So we at Read/WriteWeb are thrilled to be working with TechCrunch, GigaOm and VentureBeat to bring you the Crunchies! Stay tuned for more details over the coming weeks.

Me pontificating, with microphone in hand (on the left)

I want to note that Ross Dawson, the event organizer, created a very good introduction to Web 2.0 that you may want to check out. His web 2.0 framework has pretty much all the main concepts that are part of this era of the Web. Some might say that, like many other attempts at defining web 2.0, it is over-reaching and attempts to synthesize too many concepts under the umbrella of web 2.0. But I think it is an excellent overview of what is happening in this era, certainly helping non-techs to understand it.

As I concluded in my wrapup in my last turn at the mike, it is very exciting how web 20 has hit the mainstream in 06/07 - including corporations. We're only at the beginning of web startup success in Australia, New Zealand and indeed any non-US country (I also mentioned Europe, Asia and all the countries we've profiled here on Read/WriteWeb).

Pic: Nick Hodge

For the 'hammer' category, he was referring to tools. In the Internet age, things like games (e.g. flash), video (e.g. hd camcorders), music (e.g. garage band), web (e.g. blogs, vlogs). These tools are all cheap and the distribution is open and free (e.g. youtube, social networks, rss).

The next concept was 'wires'. That is, broadband. It is getting faster and Tom said that "speed is not the barrier" (or at least that is the trend). He noted that there will be a generation soon that "will never know the concept of waiting" - streaming will be instantaneous, speed will be a non-issue.

The third concept was 'rucksacks', by which he meant storage. In 1992 a Gigabyte cost $4000, in 2000 it cost $20 and in 2008 just $0.30. So, he said, storage will become a non-issue too.

He said that in 50 years time this era of the Web will be thought of as a renaissance, an age of great creativity. The Internet itself is still very early, in it's 'startup' age.

It's obvious then that Google looks for acquisitions that will take advantage of the above 3 things. But how do startups commercialize those ideas? Tom had this advice:

* Collaboration - get the right people on your team.

* Fulfilling user needs should be the focus - 70-80% of ideas that fail do so because of lack of user focus. Google places a lot of emphasis on this, said Tom.

* Iterate often ("Big will not beat small anymore. It will be fast beating slow"; quote from Rupert Murdoch).

He ended by saying that imagination is better than knowledge, referencing a quote by Einstein: "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

Today Read/WriteWeb is the first to announce the Mobile Launch Pad demo companies at Mobile 2.0. These are all exciting and up-and-coming mobile web startups; I'm looking forward to checking them out next week. Here is the launchpad list:

Part 2:
Webwag - http://www.webwag.com/
RuleSpace - http://www.rulespace.com/
KyteTV - http://www.kyte.tv/
ExMachina - http://exmachina.nl/

We'll be reviewing some of these products over the coming weeks.

As well as the above startups, the speaker list at Mobile 2.0 is a who's who of the Mobile Web world -- so keep an eye on Read/WriteWeb next week as we provide coverage of this event.

Alex Iskold wrote a great post on his company's blog, outlining conference tips for startups. It is written from a vendor or sponsor's point of view and makes for interesting reading. Alex definitely recommends ETech, SXSW. He gives a firm "maybe" to TechCrunch Party, Web 2.0 Expo, Web 2.0 Summit, Defrag, Blog World, AJAXWorld. His comments about what startups should do at conferences are helpful. For example he says of the recent TechCrunch party:

"The TechCrunch party was a total blast. A great atmosphere was created by a lot of people who matter in the valley. Overall, I had good demos and good conversations. A word of caution - most people are there to socialize not to look at demos. If you decide to sponsor make sure that you are visible. We spent money on the 32″ monitor and have no regrets. It does not make sense to invest into sponsorship but not to invest in equipment."

From my point of view (blogger/media), the conference I really want to attend but haven't yet is SXSW. I also view the Web 2.0 conferences that O'Reilly/CMP holds as essential, mainly because they let me network with my peers (I only get to do that 3-4 times a year, as I live on the other side of the world). Ideally I'd like to go to the TechCrunch ones too, and Defrag, and the ones in Europe, and the ones in Asia...etc. But beggars can't be choosers. Which Web conferences do you recommend, or want to attend?