Genuine VC: 

David Beisel’s Perspective on Digital Change

Portals and Startups

I’ve been rambling on in the past two days about Yahoo vs. Google. What does this have to do with startups and venture capital? Everything. These two companies, along with IAC and MSN, are likely acquirers of the new breed of startup that are emerging supporting the Incremental Web. All of the other topics I’ve covered in this short life of this blog so far – RSS, social tagging, microcontent, vertical search, web analytics – are fertile ground for innovation and new company creation.
Yes, there are a handful of companies in each of these “spaces” that have already emerged in the past year. On the extreme end, there’s del.icio.us, the company that was made “famous” in the blogosphere before the founder even quit his job and started full-time on the endeavor. And for every delicious out there already known, there’s a half-dozen still waiting to be discovered or even founded.
We’re in an exciting time. Even the mainstream media, exemplified by Newsweek, has a feature article this week about the new breed of startups. If a general news magazine thinks it’s a new story, then it’s been fact for the past nine months.
So when Google and Yahoo are upping their moves, vying for the top dog in the portal game, then it also means that we’re seeing just the beginning of feeding them with new startups. Now that’s a perfect topic for a genuine vc blog.

David Beisel
April 6, 2005 · < 1  min.

I’ve been rambling on in the past two days about Yahoo vs. Google. What does this have to do with startups and venture capital? Everything. These two companies, along with IAC and MSN, are likely acquirers of the new breed of startup that are emerging supporting the Incremental Web. All of the other topics I’ve covered in this short life of this blog so far – RSS, social tagging, microcontent, vertical search, web analytics – are fertile ground for innovation and new company creation.

Yes, there are a handful of companies in each of these “spaces” that have already emerged in the past year. On the extreme end, there’s del.icio.us, the company that was made “famous” in the blogosphere before the founder even quit his job and started full-time on the endeavor. And for every delicious out there already known, there’s a half-dozen still waiting to be discovered or even founded.

We’re in an exciting time. Even the mainstream media, exemplified by Newsweek, has a feature article this week about the new breed of startups. If a general news magazine thinks it’s a new story, then it’s been fact for the past nine months.

So when Google and Yahoo are upping their moves, vying for the top dog in the portal game, then it also means that we’re seeing just the beginning of feeding them with new startups. Now that’s a perfect topic for a genuine vc blog.


David Beisel
Partner
I am a cofounder and Partner at NextView Ventures, a seed-stage venture capital firm championing founders who redesign the Everyday Economy.