By: Chris Lien

Chris Lien — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 22:17:33 +0000

I will wager $10,000 to my favorite charity Juvenile Diabetes that Greg’s prediction will prove 100% wrong. Will the U.S. economy soften? The safe bet is yes, but don’t count out a major rate cut to stimulate the economy as we head to the election (look at most every past presidential election). The Web 2.0 ship has set sail, and the funding won’t run out in 2008 so these companies can continue to spend their funds. As for Google and Yahoo, let’s take them separately. Yahoo should drop 20%+ of its workforce as a jumpstart to get its “Jerry” back. But that has nothing to do with the economy, it’s just how does one re-energize a great company that took its eye off of the balls (search, music, video, social networking, etc.). As for Google, their one-trick pony will likely go down in history as the greatest economic creation (prize now held by MSFT’s OS and applications business), so don’t bet against them just yet. The flow of ad dollars into search will only continue as it works – and they will garner most of the spending. This time is much more rational than in 2000 – certainly there are excesses but that’s Mr. Market’s job to correct. There will be no crash in 2008 in dot-com land – if anything based on what I see the beat will go on and faster (open handsets / mobile this and that, monetizing social networks, more Internet advertising as that’s where one goes to reach consumers, etc.). We’ll look back on 2008 as yet another great year when the Internet continued its march into the mainstream of consumer and business lives.

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By: Chris Lien