A ray of light in this environment?

I did an interview with Rich Maguire of Datamation last week which he just posted yesterday.  While the markets seemed to get excited for a day about the bank bailout, attention is turning toward an even bigger problem for startups, a potential recession.  The consumer no longer has that ATM called their house and confidence and spending to boot are down.  So what's an entrepreneur to do these days and are there any pockets of opportunity?  Trust me, I am not going to give the party line that it is great to start a company now because, you know what, it really is hard to go out and do that.  However, if you are brave and bold enough to do so, I will tell you that you could be well positioned 18 months from now when the economy does get back into gear.  This market will truly separate out those who are just in it for the money, and those who are out their to build an insanely great product or service.  As for the article from yesterday, here is an excerpt and hope you enjoy.

“We know that whether it’s media consumption, content consumption or even enterprise application, that we’re going to be more and more connected. Speeds on wireless devices will get faster, networks will get faster. Devices will get better. They’ll be more and more to do out there.”

Human activity on the Web creates an explosion of consumer data – every nugget of which is worth something to someone. “Data is everywhere,” Sim says. “Every time you turn on your computer, every click you make, everything you do is a piece of data that’s logged somewhere.”

There’s profit in figuring out “How you take that data and turn it into real information, and use it to sell subscription services, target better from a profiling perspective, etc. So I think the data-driven Web is going to be another opportunity.”

His enthusiasm for the Web, however, doesn’t mean he’ll be funding such Web-centric ventures like Facebook-style sites. We don’t need another Facebook, he points out.

“I think the point is that social networking is weaved into the very existence of all the things we do. You see apps getting weaved into your email. People are getting more and more connected out there, and used to that, because of Facebook.”

This saturation will result in consumer behavior being adapted in large businesses. The potential marriage of social networking and the enterprise has piqued investor interest. “How do you take this social networking and information sharing stuff – the clip and blog and share – is there any opportunity to benefit the enterprise? On a content layer? So I’ve looked at some companies along that spectrum as well.”