A couple of
posts ago, I ended with a humorous video clip (by Ask a Ninja) that answered the question “What is Podcasting?” (see end of this blog).

Well, while
not as brief nor quite as high in comedic value, TechCrunch has just (AUG 8th, 2006)
published a FANTASTIC ~25 min video that features Michael Arrington interviewing
13 CEOs of hot, new Web 2.0-ish startups, who delve into the topic of “What
is Web 2.0? (Note: the video may take a few mins to load up—I’m
sure it’s getting lots of traffic, so click ‘play’ and be patient).

Here’s the
impressive list of CEOs who were interviewed:

- Aaron
Cohen (Bolt)
- Scott
Milener and Steven Lurie (Browster)
- Keith Teare
(edgeio)
- Steven
Marder (Eurekster)
- Joe Kraus
(JotSpot)
- Jeremy
Verbaa (Piczo)
- Auren
Hoffman (Rapleaf)
- Chris
Alden (Rojo)
- Gautam
Godhwani (Simply Hired)
- Jonathan
Abrams (Socializr)
- David Sifry
(Technorati)
- Matt
Sanchez (Video Egg)
- Michael
Tanne (Wink)

And the
topics that were discussed include:

1. What is Web 2.0?
2. Are we in a bubble?
3. What are the business models that
will work on the web today?
4. What is the role of publishers in
a user generated world?
5. How important and how big is the
early adopter crowd?
6. …as well as many others, such as VCs and funding, browsers, community,
etc.

Even though
many of the answers were rather concise, there’s a lot of insight to be gained
from them—they really provide a sense of what the current trends are for a
successful Web 2.0 business and where the industry is heading; but more than
that, they also provide a brief glimpse into the mindset of a Web 2.0 CEO,
which I believe is the key to building a great 2.0 business.

Overall, I
was really impressed by this video and really appreciate the time and effort
that was put into making it (thanks Mike and crew). I really wish TechCrunch could do this every quarter or
so with different CEOs—that would be fantastic! Hey, why not just make it a
quarterly video podcast via TalkCrunch?

So, if you’re
reading this blog, then you’re probably interested ET&T and this
video should therefore be “required watching”.