The Party’s Over
Is the bubble going bloopity burst again? Siicon Valley is certainly not the place to be raging your face off these days. "In 2001, we were the epicenter, we were the cause," Stephen Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of
the California Economy, told InformationWeek. "Now it's a world-wide recession
event."
Indeed, and the Valley is finally getting hit. Santa Clara county's unemployment rate rose to 6.9% in October from 6.5%
in September – above the national level (6.5%), but still well below California's level of 8.2%.
I dare you to find a company that hasn't been bitten by the recession bug. Tesla. Sun. LinkedIn. Yahoo. Even The Goog. The ranks of unemployed are rising as steadily as an Amish barn.
And they're not just cutting costs. That's just half the battle, you know. It's time to increase revenue: Google's putting ads all over the place, and startups that had seemingly no need for that little thing called money are suddenly looking to Q1 for some cash. Twitter, for example, has plans to scale out its revenue model – I mean, when it finds one – and turn out a product rather than just survive on ads or sponsorships, CNET tell us.
I wish you luck, guys. Business models are a dime a dozen, but try getting one to work sometime. Maybe ask your own model, Google, for ideas. After all, YouTube worked out so well.
