tecznotes

Here we go again:

...a new startup called Go BIG Network wants to one-up LinkedIn by focusing on transactions over a network, rather than the network itself. ... The service helps entrepreneurs broadcast needs across their personal networks for free, and across the whole network for a fee (yet to be implemented). (Linking Startups to VC, Red Herring)

This idea didn't work when it was called Vencast, and it's probably not going to work now. Social networks (the meatspace kind) and recommendations work because they're personal, out-of-band, serendipetous. Formalizing such connections into a "Craigslist for businesses" will hit the wall hard. The kinds of people who have good ideas and the smart people who recognize them keep a step ahead of this sort of factory commoditization of the creative process. Last time around, the appearance of such "marketplace" meta-companies was a sign of the impending crash - what does it mean in 2005, when the declaration of Bubble 2.0 is only a month old?

UPDATE: Vencast was not the first: "By compressing the time frame of the typical VC-entrepreneur dance, VC.COM reduces the lamb-to-slaughter cycle to days rather than months."