Death of the Free Web | Cap Watkins: “I’ve actually been noticing this transition in SV for the past year or so. More and more startups are focusing on revenue right out of the gate. The old way of trying to build gigantic user-bases and then sell their eyeballs to advertisers is falling by the wayside. There are certainly still exceptions, but right now they are just that – exceptions. Seeing a startup go after paying customers used to be like catching a glimpse of a unicorn. Now, it’s the…

Why Wall Street unfriended Facebook – The Globe and Mail: “Welcome to the tech industry’s summer of sober second-thought. For an unusually large number of Web and social media darlings, these past few months have been a harsh lesson in how quickly the stock market can turn nasty.” (Via. The Globe and Mail) Repeat after me: Ads cannot fund giant companies indefinitely. Eventually, the advertisers always figure out that their ad buys are essentially worthless, and they all pull out, rendering the service unsustainable. They move on to the next…

The Facebook Fallacy – Technology Review: “The daily and stubborn reality for everybody building businesses on the strength of Web advertising is that the value of digital ads decreases every quarter, a consequence of their simultaneous ineffectiveness and efficiency. The nature of people’s behavior on the Web and of how they interact with advertising, as well as the character of those ads themselves and their inability to command real attention, has meant a marked decline in advertising’s impact. “ (Via technologyreview.com.) What a great read. This could have been…

We’ve heard from a source that sometime late last night, Facebook was told that they would not be a part of Apple’s event today. This is nothing new. Companies are told to prepare to go on stage at these events all the time only to get pulled at the last second. It’s just a bit odd that a company as large as Facebook was passed over. via techcrunch.com I find this extremely hard to believe. Why would Apple, at an event called “Let’s talk iPhone”…

> But these are just personal observations and opinions. Do keep in mind that Google+ isn’t even in public beta yet. I love it, but this might even be partly due to the intensely clubby nature of this highly-restricted invite-only test community. It’s all nerds, or first-circle nerd associates. At this early, limited stage, it’s like Google+ is a social networking service where they won’t let you sign in until you’ve correctly answered a 10-item lightning round quiz of Doctor Who, Star Wars, New Gods, and…