Reinventing the Web

At TechCrunch Disrupt, a conference on the Web taking place this week in New York City, famous venture capitalist John Doerr, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, outlined his vision of the next wave of change on the Web.

Doerr is known for having invested in such heavyweight companies as Google and Amazon, and in rising stars such as the fast-growing social gaming network Zynga. He believes that the new wave of the Internet “is a combination of social, mobile, and some new kinds of commerce.” Though Doerr says he’s still searching for a name for the change he sees, he ranks it on a level with the introduction of the personal computer and the rise of the Internet.

The key, he says, is that smart phones change everything. These devices know who you are and where you are, and they’re always connected. To Doerr, this is the key to shifting the Web from being about documents and websites to being about people, places, and relationships.

Doerr has put his money where his mouth is by looking to invest in applications for mobile devices. His firm raised a $100 million to fund such ventures–the announcement was made the same day as the launch of the app store. As evidence for the impact of such devices, Doerr says that the 14 ventures his firm invested in using the money raised are going to do $100 million in revenue this year. The people who have downloaded the applications are spending 80 million minutes a day using them.