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Who here actually has a real clue about what they're doing in social media? I'm not talking about that ado from months ago about people claiming to be social media experts when they were no such thing. I'm talking about us folk who are starting social media ventures, the people who fund us, etc. Who knows where this crazy ride is leading us?

To be perfectly honest, I don't know what I'm doing with Taskerrific (as a business). I've never run a business before. I'm learning new stuff, and that's both fun and informative. But that's just about setting up a business, not so much about actually running it. Figuring out how much money will come in and whether or not things will be profitable or if it's a financial black hole.

Looking at a lot of the Web 2.0, social media services out there, I sometimes think if the people behind them think that business and web hosting and all else run on pixie dust. The really infuriating ones are those that seem to live on VC handout after handout, without any concept whatsoever about actually making money and surviving. Perhaps its a failure of my generation, perhaps we're more prone to believing that we can all live happily on the shoulders of rich market players.

Guess what, guys? That's such incredible bullshit. I can't believe it myself, and the thought that others believe it is likewise hard to swallow. For one things, most venture capitalists aren't in this to let everyone and their dog run their own business for free. They're here to make money, and they believe it's there. So where is it? How do you plan to actually make it?

With Taskerrific, I have to start making money, right away. The program I'm currently in to help me get things started has certain income quotas which must be met, and within six months of starting (and they're counting from the start of March). Besides advertising (which we all know is a crap way of making money on these kinds of services) I'm not seeing any way to hit my first target, at least. Nor am I seeing any possible investment which would allow me to successfully remove Taskerrific from the program. So I'm in a tighter spot than a lot of other startup founders (quite a few of which seem to have a decent amount of money themselves to start with).

Perhaps if more startups approached things from the same position I'm in, more thought would be put to actually building a business with income, rather than business-like parasites on the back end of investors. Perhaps then social media wouldn't appear to be such an overly optimistic bubble industry.

So, my question to the people running startups, advising startups, funding startups: Are you guys sure you know what you're doing? Are you sure the people you're working with know what they're doing? Are things going to work out well, or are we all going to hell in a handbasket, slowly?