The economic down turn is certainly something that’s not been hard to avoid; Gordon Brown made his announcements, banks have come to near collapse surviving only as a result of government bailouts, pounds tanking, etc, etc. As with any of these things until they start affecting/occurring on a personal level it’s all just typical journalistic hyperbole. 

It’s been hard to escape though and it’s finally starting to encrouch on me in more direct ways. Fortunately, and touch wood, it’s not impacted me in anyway that can be comparable to those that have lost jobs as a result of this slump and for those people I feel bad. I think the epitomy of the shocking state we’ve got ourselves into is highlighted by the “Techcrunch Layoff Tracker“. Ebay, Dell, Nvidia, Seesmic, Yahoo, Ticketmaster have all had pretty sizeable layoffs. 

The ever slumping pound crept into my life when I received the hosting bill for this very website! It normally clocks in at an even £9 something, but instead this time came in at over £12. Obviously it’s not amount of money, thank god, but it’s still the first sign of the ‘change’.  Jason Calacanis has been doing a pretty decent job of covering his thoughts and feelings on the whole downturn, in fact his email has proved to be a massively interesting read and a really honest insight into the trials and tribulations of running a start-up in this period of uncertainty. It does offer a really frank and open insight into all areas of the start-up process. I would recommend getting over to his site and signing-up. I saw a huge amount of Jason at FOWA, and the guys a brutal and highly opinionated business man but I like his frankness and whilst I don’t always agree with him I admire someone prepared to step-up and put their opinions out there.

All this rambling leads me to why I decided to have my little economic rant puff piece. Revision 3 have laid off 3 shows (Pixelperfect, Popsiren and Internet Superstar) and also cancelled distribution of Wine Library & Epic Fu. Having seen a few of the revision 3 guys giving talks at FOWA, this was really one of the last companies I expected to start laying people off. I’m led to understand that a few people have been laid off as a result of the cut backs, as well as the show’s being cancelled. They banked $8m in funding not that long ago, but I guess it’s certainly financially prudent to trim now to ensure that the 8 mil spreads across as long as this down turn lasts. If the shows weren’t finding their audience, I can also imagine they weren’t that cheap to produce, they need to be cut loose. 

You can read Jim Louderback’s blog post about it on the revision3 website, you can also check out the shows in question (which at time of writing where getting fairly strong coverage on the front page of the revision 3 website).  Right now I’m just grateful to have a job and in an industry that is normally ok in times of economic turmoil as people look for cheap and long-term entertainment. 

I hope the good people out of work right now find something soon.

*************************************

Update: Seems that Jason (mainly because I never spell his last name right) has decided to update his blog with the email that he sent around to his email list. So you can check out the article I was talking about above on his website now