Original Comment by: Mitch
http://www.gamingtrend.com
What's funny about business is that the general driving philosophy is how there will always be money to be made. Anywhere, anytime, on anything. As you point out, the infamous Tech Bubble explosion of the late 1990's made people everywhere simulatenously skittish about the interwebs and also kick themselves for not getting there first and getting out before the bubble popped. I agree that data mining for marketers is big business, and with every site and their offshoots requiring (or requesting very nicely) registration including (optional) data along with your e-mail address this can generate an awful lot of information that's very valuable to the wealthy.
But will it necessarily be "teh end of teh privacy!!11!" ? I don't think so, but I can still see both sides of the argument. In the end, business will be business and business will go where the money is. Right now it's on the websites like the mini conglomerate the IGN Network, though I know of no one who didn't laugh at the sale tag on that deal. These large organizations with endless resources smell fresh blood in the water and they pounce on it everytime. This has gone on since the dawn of time when the first marketer stepped forth from the muck and tried to figure out how to make money off the nightly sunset. Web 2.0 is just the latest trend, and when the well is dried up then business will move on to the next great thing.
At no point does this strangle innovation, quite the opposite in fact. When business sticks its head into something it expects a return on its investment. This may make innovation more complicated to perform but it still happens. Status quo is good for the short term but no business man worth their salt will say it's good for the long term. The big guns are always trying to move their respective industries forward with better tools, better technologies, and general improvements. A true revolution happens roughly every 10 to 15 years give or take (in my view) and that singular event tends to shape business for the next decade for better or worse. But this is simply one cycle among many in the world of business. Does this mean the end of the world is nigh?
Hardly.
