UKNM: Good year?

[Aidan Cook]

Unempirical, unresearched, half-remembered trends of the year from a

purely subjective point of view:


January: Conversations between NM agencies begin with the obligatory

mantra "Of course, nobody's making any money yet, but that will change

when the medium matures." 

(In this context "Nobody" is taken to mean 'me, you, and most of our

mates')



Mid Jan-April: New mantra emerges - "We've gone bust/been taken over,

because that's what will happen to/is about to happen to everybody unless

the medium matures." Can still be used with "...but of course nobody is

making any money yet".



April-Onwards: "Please can we have more inspired & flexible VC's". 


This despite the fact that many 'industry mouthpieces' spend half their

time telling these observant VC's that everybody is about to go bust.  


The other half of their time is spent asking these same VC's for more cash

for this really inspired project that will make great money "...when the

medium matures", and even if it doesn't, its okay because you'll probably

get bought by an American. 

In the meantime however, "nobody is making any money yet".



May: "Is there a shit-storm coming?" - Optimism gives way to paranoia.

Realisation that "...nobody is making any money" is not going to

miraculously transmute into "we're finally in the black" just because a

certain numerical threshold of Internet-users has been reached. 

In the meantime however, "nobody is making..."



June-Onwards: Americans continue to 'Buy British' - which apparently is a

bad thing, although "nobody making any money" temporarily becomes less of

a problem, because now the Americans are paying for it. They will get

their money back "...when the medium matures". 



...and repeat for subsequent 6 months of year.


Despite that all sounding rather negative, I just felt like throwing in a

more cheery note in contrast to my impressions of 1998, because I have to

say that the UKNM list often fails to reflect what is going on across the

UK. While it highlights many of the big problems, the many and varied

small successes are often overlooked. 


Many of the people on this list have provided some really useful (and one

hopes profitable) services and businesses to the UK and elsewhere. Things

I use/rely on like Multimap, Railtrack, iMVS, football365 and others

represent the good things about the UK, and will be the sort of natty

little functions and content which actually get people using the web as


second-nature.


Happy Christmas to all of you, and my best wishes for a prosperous 1999

(or when the medium matures).


best regards,


Aidan Cook

(Sense Internet)


This rant was bought to you largely (I think) as a consequence of my alarm

clock falling onto my bed during the course of last night, actually

resting against my ear, and therefore sounding like the day of damnation

when it went off this morning. I'm still processing the last of the huge

adrenaline-dump which went into my bloodstream, so I'm making weird

decisions like writing this huge email rather than getting on with all the

work I have to do. If its nonsense, sue me, shoot me, make me feel cheap.


*off to have a lie down*

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