Competitive unease hovers over Web 2.0

From CNET News.com: There was an uneasiness in the air this week at the stately Palace Hotel during the eighth annual Web 2.0 Summit, the sort of vibe that you couldn't see in the glossy program or in the lineup of events that included talks by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, and big-ticket investors like John Doerr and Fred Wilson. People weren't talking about it, for the most part, but you could see it. You could hear it sometimes, too, if you knew what to listen for.

"We're entering a period of conflict in the Web, a period of intense competition. We're looking at new levels of M&A. We're looking at the decision: do you partner, or do you compete?" conference organizer Tim O'Reilly said in his introduction to Web 2.0 Summit. "They're asking themselves the question: Who do I work with? Who are my friends? Who are my enemies? How am I going to win?"

"Competition," Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz said when asked for the first word that came to mind when she heard the word "Facebook."

"You don't need an app for the Web," criticized Research In Motion co-CEO Jim Balsillie, taking a potshot at RIM's biggest threat, Apple's iPhone, and the structured, app-based environment it promotes. "You go through some sort of special developer set of tools because there's no other way--we just don't believe that to be true."

"It's overheated. Things are getting crazy. People are showing up to their first meetings with their term sheets," Union Square Ventures' Fred Wilson said of the start-ups that are scrambling to take advantage of an open season among both traditional venture capitalists and the individual "angel investors" who are shaking up the financing landscape.

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