David Emery Online

Scenester Happenings

21 October 2006

The Geekdinner last night was really good fun – it’s always nice to get together with like minded people for a drink, and it’s nice to hear that there’s going to be a big geek Christmas party in December, again organised by the tireless Ian (who took the pic above, I must add).

One interesting thing that became apparent last night, however, is how dominant Yahoo! is becoming on the London geek social scene. A significant proportion of the attendees either work for Yahoo! or are just about to, which is certainly interesting. I have to say I’m not the biggest Yahoo! fan – can you think of something Yahoo! has done that’s genuinely interesting or innovative? Sure, they’ve bought a lot of interesting companies, but does that make them interesting themselves?

I can see Yahoo! being one of the bigger casualties when this bubble bursts – they’ve really invested heavily in the Web 2.0 hype, with little advantage gained as yet. Sure, Flickr is popular with the geeks, but it hasn’t hit the mainstream yet and it may well never. While they’ve bought a lot of interesting companies, they’ve conspicuously missed out on all the big buys – MySpace and YouTube.

Nevertheless, while Yahoo! itself ain’t too hot, the people that have been assimilated work there are a really nice bunch, so a good time was had by all. It’ll be interesting to see if the London Yahoo! office comes up with something interesting soon – they’ve certainly got the talent there that ought to.