This is a short article about a new web company. Kiko, that put itself up for bid on ebay (ie they want out of the business), and why. Lot's of good comments at the bottom of the piece as well.
I'm not sure i agree with everything in the piece. One of the things that's going to make life particularly hard for these web 2.0 companies is that the nature of google is such that, in my view, is such that they are having a great run by introducing new services which do not need to make money or be supported in the long run. They need only to keep introducing cool web services and keep the press beast fed, and their search money will keep building. That's not to say they don't do great stuff, but it is to say that as soon as some web service idea gets some attention, they may just want to buy or produce a competitor just to get the attention... Weird situation.
Lessons From The Death Of A Web 2.0 Startup:
Google Is The New Microsoft: Back in the day, lots of software companies made sure that their business models kept them out of the cross-hairs of Microsoft. They didn’t want to get stomped on. Today, though this is still the case in some sectors, Google is a much more formidable (and scary) competitor. Google has all the power of a multi-billion dollar company, but a lot of the nimbleness and energy of a startup. With Google’s introduction of Google Calendar, Kiko really didn’t have a chance with it’s original business model.
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read the article at http://onstartups.com
from http://blog.outer-court.com/ 
