The tech industry cycles very predictably, and somehow it always feels as if it’s for the first time. Very refreshing in a way. Eating lunch at the picnic table in the office, we were talking about what would be some signs that the tech boom is getting into the 3rd quarter…
1) high number of new G.P.’s being hired at VC firms, just in time for their investments to crater in 3 years.
2) more people with British accents around Silicon Valley
3) increasingly attractive people, both men and women, around Silicon Valley
4) VC’s you’ve never heard of, backing companies you think, eh? What the hell is that?
5) new HBS grads joining startups
6) guys in their late 20’s breaking up with their girlfriends rather than getting married and getting distracted from work
7) married couples delaying having babies so they can focus on work
8) pretty large and pretty swanky company parties
9) oversized marketing departments
10) PR companies growing
11) decoupling of earnings from valuations (e.g. Aqantive, You Tube)
Another thought we had was that if a viable business model emerges for YouTube, justifying the acquisition cost and calming the IP lawsuits, the boom might extend because the markets might assume it means that the ad dollars from TV will continue to migrate online, and perhaps subsequently, the online companies could inherit the viewership from the TV companies, NBC, ABC, etc. If a good business model cannot be found for YouTube… then maybe the party in our little corner of the IT world will end more or less on schedule in 18-24 months.
Ooga Labs 
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Does it matter that YouTube doesn’t have a business model? They’re the 4th busiest site on the Web, according to Alexa. Which means Google – for a measley 1.6 billion dollars – now owns the #2 and #4 sites on the Web. That’s a hilariously cheap investment, even if YouTube never earns a penny, and simply costs them bandwidth dollars from now until the end of time.
Of course, assuming that you need to “find the revenue model” for YouTube is _precisely_ what sunk the ship the last time around. Relax. Take a breath. The web isn’t going to die – even if some companies do. And I honestly doubt that YouTube will _ever_ die. Google could crush it, I suppose, but right now it’s _the_ brand in the entire online video space, and that’s a really tough thing to kill. You’d have to do it intensionally.
If we all do take that deep breath, we’d see that the most interesting thing about YouTube is what it enables: all sorts of micro-audiences having interesting conversations about all sorts of interesting things. And that may be the answer: there is no one “model” for making money off of YouTube, just as there is no one audience for YouTube. Ok, so your marketing staff will be hella confused – and that’s a good thing. When they figure out that what they need to do is get the hell out of the way, and let the communities market to themselves – perhaps taking a few points off the top, like an eBay – they’ll realize they have a cash machine unlike anything anyone ever dreamt of.
But such visionary thoughts from Web2.0 marketers may be too much to ask.