Ian Landsman is Starting From Scratch, September 30, 2006:
Web 2.0 Minions - Leaving Money on the Table for the Rest of Us!
If you're in the market for a powerful and user friendly Help Desk solution, please take a look at my company's flagship product HelpSpot.
I’m here at BarCamp having a great time. They’ve done a great job organizing this event and Amit and his crew have obviously learned a great deal from the last one and really implemented some great changes.
There’s probably about 200 people here. The good news for those of you who read this blog is that I can report that most of the smartest people in our industry are distracted by Web 2.0 and especially social networking. There’s an incredible focus on solving already solved problems of social networking.
Part of me feels sad by this because there’s so many great problems these folks could be solving. On the other hand, they’re leaving all the really great problems to the rest of us to solve (and profit from)! Yeah!
Discussion
Right on spot, Ian.
It leaves even more money for the 'desktop app' guys like me 
It is so not hot to create a desktop application nowadays, even if this would be the best solution for many problems.
Created by Boris Yankov on 09.30.2006 4:33 pm
Hi Ian. I agree with your comments on social networking. That said, I think "Web 2.0" products *can* solve problems (Social networking being different to Web 2.0 in my mind). I found a great holiday spot using Flickr. Digg brings me interesting news. And I use a Web 2.0 mail client. Isn't Helpspot on Emily Chang's eHub?
So yeah, the majority is hype. But I think there's still some good stuff being done within the Web 2.0 framework of technologies.
Created by Kyle McLuckie on 09.30.2006 8:37 pm
Good points all. Just also note that Foo Camp and Bar Camps are intended to draw participants from emerging technologies and practices so that O'Reilly get input on what to put into their books. The desktop environment, while likely a stronger place to make money and solve most problems at this time, is not an emerging environment. Emerging is not a judgement on a technology or practice, just a catagorization of where something is in its lifecycle from bleeding edge through maturity and sunsetting. Participants might also be doing other stuff, but just talk about the web 2.0 stuff at the camps.
Created by Scott Meade on 09.30.2006 9:40 pm
The irony is, I'm looking at Tucows tonight, and who do I see listed in the "What's Hot in Web 2.0 This Week"?
HelpSpot.
Created by Nick Hebb on 10.01.2006 6:03 am
Nick I can't have my cake and eat it to? 
No seriously though, that only strengthens my point. I wish these smart folks would focus on building actual applications that do things instead of trying to find a slightly new variation on myspace or facebook.
I suppose Scott, though most people seem to be in active dev on pie in the sky stuff. You can tell because you don't hear much talk about end users, mostly about technology (to be expected of course) and buzzy stuff like taxonomies, social xyz, etc.
I'm still having a blast though! I've definetly found a group more in line with my thinking and it's been fun bouncing ideas around and talking a bit about the future of UserScape.
Created by Ian on 10.01.2006 10:32 am
Ian - it's great that you are having a good time there! I understand your perspective about customers. That you have paying customers and understand that there is much more to running a business than just the technology is one reason I like your blog. Keep the faith and keep the good work coming!
Created by Scott Meade on 10.01.2006 5:32 pm