In my observations on the Semantic Technology conference last month, I mentioned I would be blogging separately about the dire lack of investments by Web 3.0 start-ups in market understanding and marketing.

Before I start, let me signal some conflict of interest here: in the course of my job, I lead efforts on market understanding and positioning, brand awareness and lead generation. The idea is that developing my market is in the interest of start-ups with a stake in Web 3.0 and the semantic web. I get more business when they do But please do discount my words for this bias, and decide for yourself, when all is said and done, whether we have a solid case here or not.

My main claim with this post is that companies in the Web 3.0 and semantic web space are downright bad at filling unmet
needs, packaging their offer effectively and cutting through the market
noise to secure users and revenues. It even appears this incapacity to grow revenues has a direct impact on their
ability to make money (ok, it’s sunny outside, after five days of clouds there is no harm in having a little fun, is there?

The large and growing number of players at SemTech told me that we are already in a crowded market. And yet: few real products, and very few sales. Most of the people there live on R&D funding from public institutions and overtrusting angels, not client receivables.

Why? (more…)