There’s a lot of the end-of-Web 2.0 bandwagon-jumping happening in the wake of Sequoia holding a meeting earlier this week with its portfolio CEOs, and Seesmic announcing yesterday it will lay off seven of its employees, or one-third of its staff.
Yes, the global economic landscape is volatile and there are dark clouds of uncertainly looming but everyone seems to be jumping to conclusions without offering many perspectives. TechCrunch, which has built an empire profiling Web 2.0 startups, calls Seemsic’s move the start of the “UnParty”. (TC is an investor in Seesmic.)
First, it makes complete sense for Sequoia to gather its CEOs to give them a lay of the land. As a major investor with a vested interest in their success, giving them an overview of what’s happening and suggestions for how to survive tough times is a sensible move. As well, the opportunity for their CEOs to get together to network and compare notes can only be a good thing.
As for Seesmic, it’s restructuring is being seen as a harbinger of things to come. While many online companies will have no choice but to tighten their belts to reduce burn, Seesmic’s staff reduction arguably has everything to do with the slow pick up of video comments.
Everyone talks about having conversations within social media but it’s happening using text, not video, which has not resonated with many consumers.
Seesmic is struggling because it’s product isn’t solving a problem or meeting a growing need. With $6-million of financing completed in June, Seesmic is betting is can ride out the economic storm and, more importantly, survive long enough for video comments to gain traction – if, in fact, that ever happens.
Update: The chatter about what’s happening within the tech world continues to rage on. Fred Wilson adds some solid perspective, while Michael Arrington addresses some of the “criticism” aimed at the VCs getting pragmatic about what’s going on.
