Lights, Camera, AJAX! What if some of the startups in Web 2.0 were a Hollywood movie?
Hollywood and Silicon Valley have two things in common. A lot of money and drama. Some of the most popular Web 2.0 startups would compare good with Hollywood movie productions. With almost similar story lines and plot twists.
So let’s try to imagine some Web 2.0 startups as Hollywood movies.
The You Tube Project

Directed by Jawed Karim, Chad Hurley and Steven Chen
Three young men braved to go alone into dark woods packed only with essentials and their video cameras. The next time they were seen was through their own recorded footage that was left behind. No trace of the bodies was ever found. What was seen was more terrorizing than ever imaginable, as they tried to escape a dark unseen menace in the woods.
Millions of sympathizers across the internet upload their own personal videos to video sharing sites as a tribute to those brave souls {this story was later revealed as fake, the directors are all safe and filthy rich - many people refuse to believe it and continue to upload videos all over the world on a daily basis}.
The MySpace

Directed by Tom Anderson
Tom invented MySpace, but it grew smarter than human beings themselves. It managed to lure young fresh minds into the network even though the code sucked and looked ugly as heck.
It promised to help you connect with your friends and let you post online everything you ever did in your life, but at a very steep price - Your freedom. Pretty soon everyone was part of the “Space” and their minds were plugged into a mainframe.
A few managed to set themselves free and they now lead the effort to free more minds and get unplugged from MySpace.
The Facebook

Directed by Mark Zuckerberg
“Mrs. Robinson, you are trying to seduce me”. Voted as the second “Luckiest” network after MySpace - darn machines and their fake blonde’s in red dresses!
The director thought it would be a good idea to put in a little bit of fun and add a lot of Poking in the film. Ultimately though too much poking and not enough studying leads to a confused time in most graduates lives, which ultimately drives them up the Wall and interrupt weddings.
Flickr

Directed by Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield
photos of your family look great on the fireplace mantle, the bedside table, in albums, even your own personal online photo account. But not on someone else’s wall, placed chronologically by date!
But photos can also hold deep dark unknown secrets. Is that kiss real? Is that smile genuine? One man flickrs with his own obsessions as he learns about other people’s secrets and tries to fix what went wrong.
Digg

Directed by Kevin Rose {starring himself as The Don}
All those who pledge allegiance one day to you may eventually become your enemy and turn their back on you. Even your own brother.
In this drama of unfolding daily news of the Diggleone family nothing comes in between them and domination. From HD-DVD keys to Apple Hacks all secrets come out into the open.
Well, I think I’ll stop now and let you just take on your own imagination with other Web 2.0 companies compared to Hollywood.
Feel free to put your own thoughts in the comments.
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TechTalker on July 31st, 2007
1
I like it..it’s something you could do on the side =)
Jonathan Franzone on August 1st, 2007
2
Very creative post! Love it.
Vinod on August 2nd, 2007
3
Stumbled!
Wonder what will you have Techcrunch as
Collis on August 3rd, 2007
4
That is classic! Myspace is just disturbingly apt - after all that place is definitely not reality