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Social Media Bubble Soon to Pop Artfully on Instagram

by Ariana Tobin

Long, long ago, back in the good old days of 2010, one couldn't open's MacBook without stumbling upon a new way to socialize. There was a group blog for adults who love their teddy bears. A Yelp for people. An app that connected Twitter to people's credit cards, so that they could share every purchase. A way to rate pets and old people as hot / not.

As it turns out, we denizens of the world wide web weren't actually all that interested in broadcasting every single drugstore receipt, toenail clipping, or workout cut short: many a start-up has now collapsed in the ruins of spectacular early fundraising. Now, Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports that venture capitalists are finally halting investing in everyone promising to be the new Facebook.

Joshua Brustein writes:

"Social-media companies drew only 2 percent of the venture capital headed to Internet-based enterprises last quarter, according to data published on Tuesday by CB Insights, a research firm that tracks venture-capital investment. In the two-year stretch that ended in the middle of 2012, social-media companies took in at least 6 percent of overall venture capital invested in Internet companies each quarter. But for three of the last four quarters, those social startups have brought in 2 percent or less (with the outlier quarter largely the result of a huge investment in Pinterest earlier this year). The peak came in the third quarter of 2011, when social companies led by Twitter took in 21 percent of the total $3.8 billion in Internet deals by venture capital firms."

This year, the money seems to be trending toward big data and the cloud. A private, personal cloud.

Are the days of sharing soon to be behind us?

(Image: Popsugar)