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Oct 13 2008
12:12PM
EDT
CNet's Web of the Damned
A website's popularity may not be enough to survive the "greatest economic crisis since the Depression." CNet's Rafe Needleman warns that some favorite online destinations and services may be in danger of shutting down.
Some of the vulnerable are obvious: travel organizer TripIt will suffer as people scale back on vacations and teleconferencing replaces business trips; real-estate site Zillow isn't as relevant post-bubble, unless it's tracking foreclosures; and music site Pandora will be hassled by the RIAA over royalties no matter the economic climate.
Which web darling isn't deemed to be in some type of existential crisis? Facebook.
It's left off the list, although much like Twitter (picked as the most endangered species by CNet), the social media giant has no clear business strategy besides relying on increasingly tight-fisted advertisers.
Sure, it's got the capital--$240 million from Microsoft--but in the three years founder Mark Zuckerberg says it'll take to come up with a revenue plan, his users could move on to the next fad that springs from the Harvard dorms.
Check here for the rest of the "Vulnerable 11," including the Jan Brady of search engines, Ask.com, Skype, and SecondLife.
Andrea Chalupa
Some of the vulnerable are obvious: travel organizer TripIt will suffer as people scale back on vacations and teleconferencing replaces business trips; real-estate site Zillow isn't as relevant post-bubble, unless it's tracking foreclosures; and music site Pandora will be hassled by the RIAA over royalties no matter the economic climate.
Which web darling isn't deemed to be in some type of existential crisis? Facebook.
It's left off the list, although much like Twitter (picked as the most endangered species by CNet), the social media giant has no clear business strategy besides relying on increasingly tight-fisted advertisers.
Sure, it's got the capital--$240 million from Microsoft--but in the three years founder Mark Zuckerberg says it'll take to come up with a revenue plan, his users could move on to the next fad that springs from the Harvard dorms.
Check here for the rest of the "Vulnerable 11," including the Jan Brady of search engines, Ask.com, Skype, and SecondLife.
Andrea Chalupa
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