However, when it comes to the case of the web's smaller players - and especially currently fledgeling start-ups, the problems are fairly acute. With such small profit margins or reliance on outside investment being the key component of their business models, the lack of money elsewhere is having serious knock-on effects here (see the case of visual search engine Riya, or url shortener Tr.im).

Similarly, failing acquisitions bought up by larger players are now being quickly dumped by their owners, conscious of the need to tighten the ship (e.g. Canadian photo-sharing site Bubbleshare, part owned by Disney). In essence time has run out for assets which were in serious need of work - it's now far more sensible to simply abandon messy performers and cut losses.

(N.B. I haven't provided many examples above - instead, for a comprehensive list, visit the Techcrunch DeadPool - a collection of 'obituaries' for web 2.0 companies closing their doors/domains in the recession)

In essence the recession will hardly even come close to killing off the start-up sector - and perhaps all that is happening - in a wider sense - is that the initial requirements needed for getting something off the ground are becoming slightly more demanding. Perhaps this might just work to make the level of innovation better by virtue of increasing competetion? (I don't want to diminish the seriousness of the consequences for those losing jobs, which must be awful, but simply to view the process on a more long term scale).

I guess that ultimately i'm trying to drum up something of a silver lining to the cloud that now seems to be hanging at least in part over the web sector too. Maybe we'll have a case of sorting the wheat from the chaff - as for example is the case with tr.im. After all, it was always inevitable that with Tinyurl, Bit.ly and others also competing, some would have to bite the dust sooner or later. Perhaps the recession has just accelerated a darwinian/capitalist process of natural selection. Furthermore, clearly some failures provide valuable lessons of how and where markets and developments have been misguided or misapplied. If we can learn from them, maybe we have an opportnity to improve things elsewhere...

Dejan Levi

Slideshare.net

The first thing new visitors will recognise is the layout - the homepage features a search bar, a tag cloud, and then selections of most popular, most downloaded, and recently added shows. Further down there are links to users and groups (like Youtube, Slideshare encourages users to register into the community - though you can use the site without doing this).

All in all the interface is functional and easy to use and, perhaps most importantly, it is also instantly familiar due to the popularity of the globally successful Youtube layout. So far so good in terms of attracting new users.

What distinguishes Slideshare from other competitors such as Flickr or Bubbleshare is that, while these photo sharing sites allow for slideshow options, they are not specifically dedicated to the slideshow format as the primary content form. Slideshare has a narrower focus and hence can deliver a far more developed and comprehensive service.

For example, Slideshare offers extensive SEO potential. The effective use of keywords in both slideshow titles and summaries boosts Google rankings, as does relevant tag deployment. A nice touch is that Slideshare widgets can be added to blogs or websites (again much like Youtube), meaning Slideshare provides a very easy way to add this content type to websites - and achieve greater SEO as a result.

In addition Slideshare allows for closed communities to be formed among friends or work colleagues - so that private slideshows can be shared. Potentially this provides a great method to exchange work presentations in a secure environment between colleagues, or private photo slideshows among friends/family.

The slidecasts function is also a nice touch - allowing for combining slides with mp3s to create musical presentations, comedy clips, or whatever else. This is likely to greatly increase the capacity of Slideshare to attract entertaining content, as well as the more obvious presentations, how-to tutorials, and webinars...

The potential for serious learning materials to be shared is another exciting prospect. In theory we could see a Wikipedia style function emerge except that, rather than hosting articles (like Wikipedia), Slideshare could have presentations explaining complex scientific concepts, historical periods, political ideas etc.

Furthermore, universities or colleges could create closed networks within which to share lecture presentations with all students who are enrolled at their institutions. This could provide a great way to pool learning resources and grant access to material across all departments - creating an online library of all lecture slideshows.

Slideshare was founded in 2006, and has gone from strength to strength since. Though currently still in a Beta testing stage, it has become increasingly popular since that time. If they can continue to add features and improve their service, while retaining the specificity of their function (i.e. not expanding into video for example), then I think they can surely corner this sector as their own in the same way that Youtube has taken the video sharing market. Exciting times lie ahead for this unique start-up; - we'll keep you updated...

Dejan Levi