The tech industry is alive and well, despite the looming fear that a bubble is on the horizon. But like a former child actor entering his 40s, we’re starting to see some wear around the edges. There are problems looming that if left unchecked could eat the industry from the inside out.

Right now, they are little more than a few sun spots and wrinkles, but given some time the entire industry could be in need of a face lift. Before it goes under the knife, lets take a moment to look at some of the age spots and see if we can smooth away the fine lines.

Oh Brave New World, With Such People In It

What’s dangerous about web technology as it stands is that nothing is being built that non-tech users want to use. Web 2.0 companies are almost exclusively focused on grabbing as many early adopters as they can and hoping for a quick acquisition. Very few of these companies have a sustainable, scalable plan of how they would stay in business if big brother Google or Aunt Yahoo! doesn’t come by to bail them out.

Answers Without Questions

If Web 1.0 is marked by the idea that the fastest route to a good startup is to take some brick and mortar store and make an online storefront, Web 2.0 is mired by the equally incorrect belief that any two unrelated concepts if mixed in with a Facebook app and tagging is the perfect recipe for success. Just as we learned that you can’t sell Dog Food online, soon enough we’ll figure out that trying to solve problems that no one actually has is the fastest route to the Deadpool.

Self-Flaggelation

You ever notice that when tech news slows down on Friday and Saturday, the first thing we do is turn on each other? The exact attack vectors aren’t important. What is critical is that as more real money is poured into blogging and citizen journalism, we all need to stop acting like we are only talking to ourselves. There is a hard cap to how seriously we can be taken as an industry when so much of our news reads like supermarket tabloids.

Buzz and Bravado

Too many startups are being fueled almost exclusively by the shifting and often inscrutable whims of tech media. When the eye of the industry is on these companies, everything is fine. When that fickle eye turns to the next show pony, however, the Emperor will soon be discovered to be quite naked.

Uneven Coverage

Much of the real meat of web technology is not the stuff that we see everyday on Techmeme. The problem is that the services that push industries into new directions are being put together well out of the range of the tech media’s radar. If services with potential die on the vine because they can’t generate media attention, and “me too” companies keep taking the spotlight, something important will be lost in the mix.

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Lack Of Crossover

“Web 2.0″ continues to allude the interest of mainstream media. Other than real platform companies like Facebook that have won the hearts of the public and minor human interest pieces, no one cares about what happens on the web. Technology only works when you can spread it into the hands of the public at large. As long as we are unable to make technology that mainstream media can find value in, the industry will never see explosive growth.

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Web 2.0 Roundup

None of these problems by themselves will be the cause of “Bubble 2.0,” but if the death of Web 2.0 is ever written, some or all of these things will be cited as the reasons. Is there anything we can do about it? Sure but it will require rethinking how we create, report and think about web technology and that is no small task.

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