Recently TechCrunch profiled 5Min How To video Startup raised another $5 million dollars in angel financing to "grow" their business of providing a way for people to upload and share "how to" videos on different topics.
So what is so special about this "Startup"? Well, since the company's motto is "everybody's good at something" and they style themselves as a Life Videopedia (way to ruin the English language by inventing dumb sounding words) you would think that they would bring something unique to the YouTube dominated niche of the Internet. Apart from slow motion re/play, they really don't put forth anything original. Oh wait, yes they do, they limit your videos to 5 minutes. Now that's a sure way to gain a user base and generate some ad revenue from potential advertisers.
And who in this world needs yet another video sharing site. The fact that there are tons of existing ones (and good ones) out there does not seem to deter investors from financing these new "unbelievably useless" startups, wasting their money on enterprises that in a year or too will burn through their cash and close up shop. Who hires these VCs to manage people's money?
Michael Arrington from TechCrunch thinks that 5Min is on a roll, I am sure he means on a good roll. I am argueing otherwise. 5Min is on a roll "DOWN" the hill people. Does anyone really think that these guys could make $5 million back, never mind the 20-50% return expected by investors, when it took YouTube a helping hand from Google to figure out how to properly monetize their user content. If you do, then you belong in the same stinky pool as the founders and investors of 5Min.
I started this blog to profile and b*tch about companies like these, to make people see that we are sponsoring and investing in companies that add no real value to our economies or in any way shape or form help improve our standard of living. Sure there are a few that do make a difference, although very little, by making our lives more productive and letting us spend more time away from our computers and the internet. Internet is a tool, all of the sites and applications are its components - do not let it take over your life and consume you. It will lead to no good things.
One way to prevent companies like 5Min from even receiving VCs attention is to no use their services, or make your Capital managers invest in companies that do make a difference.
Since the company is from Israel my "wasted money quote" will refer to the conflict there.
More millions was wasted today on Web 2.0 than : "On providing aid to the people affected by the war between Israel and Palestine"
Take care
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2 comments:
Hi,
I agree with you, but I think we live in a time, when Internet as the medium is so new, we need a lot of projects and explorers to try a lot of things to see what is usefull and what is not. They are just one of "explorers". some sites will work and some dont. But at this time of exploration, nobody can tell (even VC), who will survive and who dont. Thats why it make sense to have 5 slightly different video sharing sites.
Tomas
btw.: Whou would you think about my project: http://www.wirenode.com ? We do mobile webhosting.
Hey Tomas,
I checked out your project and I gotta tell you its one of the most innovative ideas have seen. I am gonna have to include a link back to you on my blog. The only issue that I have is about how are you going to monetize the service, and if you going to do it in a non intrusive way.
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