Web 2.0 still in its infancy

04/06/2008

A major venture capitalist has responded to criticism of Web 2.0 companies' failure to successfully monetise themselves by saying that companies shouldn't start out looking to capitalise straight away.

Paul Fisher from Advent Ventures told the Guardian that the success of companies like Google did not come overnight as many believe.

Their priority from the start was not financial, instead they chose to innovate and build an audience in a new area before moving on to monetise their business model later.

"Web 2.0 is still in its infancy," he said.
"Venture capitalists invest with a five-year horizon and to criticise Twitter for not making revenues yet is insane.

"Remember that MySpace wasn't exactly a cash cow when Rupert Murdoch stepped in and now, despite a few hiccups, it is widely regarded as the future proofing of News Corp."

Mr Fisher was speaking in regard to an article in the Financial Times, in which fellow venture capitalist Roger Lee suggested that many Web 2.0 companies will soon fall off the radar.

Micro-blogging site Twitter was recently scrutinised after securing $15 million in funding.

The site remains extremely popular with its early adopter user-base but has yet to work out a way to monetise its operations, although it will no doubt look to the success of Google as inspiration