A version of this article by John Evans first appeared in Syntagma.

Many small businesses are web-based now. Some use weblog technology as the centrepiece of the enterprise.

However, the outlook is not sunny for these businesses during this recessionary interlude. What, then, does the future hold for small-to-medium internet business?

Another week, another blog network wraps itself up. This time it’s the business network, Know More Media, which was particularly hard hit by Google’s ranking penalties.

Like BlogNation, a UK-based outfit, they simply ran out of money. I can think of many others that suffered the same fate, but will spare you the litany.

Even the few networks that professionalized themselves by raising VC funding and bringing in experienced managers, are finding the going tough right now. Earlier predictions of another dotcom bust are not off the table yet.

I’ve written many pieces here over the past three years on the choices faced by network owners and the chances of success. Most warned of this present crisis. As a result, Syntagma was ahead of the pack in diversifying into specialist information products on subscription terms. We have not yet felt the full force of the U.S. recession-in-progress.

The coming steep downturn in the UK will have minimum effect on us, except if the pound sterling falls relative to the dollar, in which case we will see our income rise on a windfall.

In America, the startup industry is losing momentum fast, although there’s no shortage of brave souls willing to chance more than their arms.

So, what’s to be done if you have invested heavily in an internet business, whether content or blogging-based or not?

The answer is to spot the second bounce of the ball.

As the economies eventually begin to turn around and a slow recovery takes place, most people will be looking out for “little green shoots” to signify a return to economic growth. In the early 1990s those shoots were a long time coming, and when they did, they grew slowly like hardwood trees, not the swift pines we were hoping for. I suspect the little shoots will keep us waiting even longer this time.

Green shoots may be interesting, but watching for the second bounce of the ball is usually more profitable. If the first bounce online for many of us was mass publishing technologies, what could the second be?

Providing content on your own platform as both writer and publisher makes sense because it cuts costs. Hiring other writers to do it for you made sense three years ago, but with advertisers shunning small-to-medium operations it’s probably easier to flip burgers.

Now we need a second bounce to reflate the whole business of working successfully online.

Forget social media. Maggie Jackson’s book Distracted: The Erosion Of Attention And The Coming Dark Age highlights the price we pay — including actual brain damage — for standard multi-tasking and trying to keep abreast of the information space.

As in my own book on the subject, Mediate Yourself, this is now becoming a common theme whose time is about to come. Finding ways not just of sifting and processing information but relating it to people’s essential requirements is a major path forward. Limiting individuals’ needs to interact with screens is probably more relevant still.

Simplifying the lives of knowledge workers is the big leap forward that will take us to the next level.

So far technology and software have complicated human life immeasurably. The constant pressure to upgrade and learn new tricks is mind-mashingly painful for most people — hence the brain damage.

The truth is, there may be no single second bounce this time, but a series of mini-bounces, with no one golden goose presenting itself for carving.

At Syntagma, we have our eyes on a variety of possibilities. To use a rugby term, all it needs is for someone to pick up a ball and run with it. As I write, there are not many runners out there.

In a Sunday article which made waves around the blogosphere, The New York Times claimed that internet entrepreneurs, writers and bloggers are keeling over thanks to the strains of the 24/7 global internet culture.

The general consensus on Techmeme.com was that this was nonsense.

The NYT writes :

Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December. Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet.

Of course, to be scientific, you would have to subtract from these few examples the number of deaths and heart attacks in the general population to arrive at a guesstimate of internet publishing’s real rate of attrition.

No doubt there are serious stresses and strains working in the new online environment, but anyone who has worked for newspapers to tight daily deadlines will recognize the same pressures and symptoms.

Try slaving in a factory, repetitively doing the same tasks thousands of times a day. Or surviving the water-cooler politics of office life. Worse, the back-breaking toil of farm work. There are no easy options in “the world of work”.

I think the problem lies, as ever, with meetings, travel, networking and other inconsequentials of the wired-up sector. Networking for the internetizen means Twittering and Tweeting incoherently to hundreds, maybe thousands, of “followers”, mostly without a shred of benefit to the bottom line. Email is another source of stress and should be stamped on ruthlessly, as Michael Arrington of TechCrunch wrote last week.

The Times has this quote from him, “‘I haven’t died yet,’ said Michael Arrington, the founder and co-editor of TechCrunch, a popular technology blog. ‘At some point, I’ll have a nervous breakdown and be admitted to the hospital, or something else will happen. This is not sustainable,’ he said.”

It all depends on how you do it, naturally. Some people concentrate only on the essentials, others adopt the “4-hour Workweek” by outsourcing everything from triaging email to washing their socks. But, sensibly, it is possible to contain the stresses of the internet life.

You don’t need to be on top of every development, or go to every conference or gig. Internet entrepreneurship can be very rewarding if you can organize your time appropriately.

So what’s new?

In the UK, the new financial year begins on Sunday, April 6. What sort of year can we expect in these troubled times?

Businesses on the brink

On some of our money sites we’ve begun writing about reliable stores of value for investors looking for a safe haven for their cash. The Money Log plumps for traditional timepieces. How to clock up a profit on clocks.

Marshall Sponder, who authors our Art NYC site, has been writing about the businesses shutting up shop in New York.

Over at Syntagma, John Evans has been considering the fate of our own business, Syntagma Media. We seem to be very well placed, but who knows how bad it will get before it gets better?

There’s no doubt we’re in for hard times in the upcoming financial year. How well small business copes will depend on how well prepared it is and how free of debt and obligations to cash-strapped institutions.

We wish all our readers a very happy new financial year.

Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch has a great post on succeeding with a startup.

This arose out of a traffic-generating dispute between Duncan Riley and Jason Calacanis over (would-you-believe) work/life balance. Robert Scoble also weighted in against the Aussie showing how you can lift your web visitor numbers by squabbling amongst each other.

You must hire the right people. In particular, the early employees must be perfect. This is more important than anything else, including the product or business idea. Perfect teams can adapt to failing products or market/competitive issues and correct for that. That’s why great teams tend to work together over and over again, and sometimes start companies even before they know what the product will be.

He should know. His TechCrunch network is one of the more successful internet startups in recent years.

We should all pay attention to his message.