Internet Outlook 2009

In February I attended Potomac TechWire's Internet Outlook 2009. It is an annual event that invites local DC area VC's and entrepreneurs to discuss the state of the web. This year's event was well attended and had a lively panel discussion.

This year's panel:
Jonathan Aberman, Managing Director, Amplifier Networks
Phil Bronner, General Partner, Novak Biddle Venture Partners
Luis Derechin, CEO and Co-Founder, JackBe
Hooman Radfar, CEO & Co-founder, ClearSpring
Mark Walsh, CEO, GeniusRocket
Moderator - Paul Sherman, Editor, Potomac Tech Wire

Below are some notes I took on the panel discussion.

First topic - major Internet trends today

Phil B:
- mobile
- leveraging broadband
- shift back to B2B
- over-hyped trend: social networking

Hooman R (remarks also on his blog)
- web as a platform for services. Not longer just a website - now must deliver multi-platform, multi-channel service. Noted that mobile is big consumer channel. E.g., ESPN.com is seeing faster growth for its mobile web channel than tradition website.
- social network as web foundational service
- mobile as a channel to deliver services

Mark Walsh:
- privacy is dead, start living like it is
- traditional advertising is dead. Word of mouth, 1-to-1 marketing is the future. People don't trust and don't pay attention to traditional, non-tailored ads.
- virtual reality
- over-hyped trend: green tech, now but not in the future

Second topic - Internet business models, what's working
- focus on vertical market
- video is big, especially premium video (Hulu, $100 million in revenue)
- user pay models (e.g., iTunes)
- Facebook: virtual goods, $400 million/year
- iPhone apps, $100-200 million/year
- advertising: message categorization and customization, contextual ads
- data exchanges
- "Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid"


Third topic - recommendations for success
- Use everything that is free (e.g., open source)
- be an early player "on an empty hockey rink", partner with other early strong players
- if you engage the customer, they will pay you
- as transparency grows, reputation matters


In:
- iGoogle
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Hulu
- LinkedIn

Out:
- Yahoo
- MySpace
- FriendFeed