Core Competencies of Web 2.0
- Online services, not packaged software, with cost-effective scalablitlity
- Maintaining control over unique, hard-to-recreate information that gets
- richter the more that people use it
- Trusting users as co-developers and co-creators
- Harnessing collective intelligence
- Leveraging The Long Tail as the primary target market
- Exploiting lightweight business models
Speculating on the Root Causes of Web 2.0
Large online communities have formed recently that are sharing content and information very effectively and informally (like MySpace, YouTube, blogosphere, …)
The proximate cause appears to be:
- Radical simplicity in usage
- Increasing focus on generating network effects (viral feedback loops, value added by each visitor)
- Intense two-way interactivity
- …
The Web as a Platform
- Larges single global audiance and marketplace
- The place where our software and data is moving
- is the new über-platform (yepp "über")
- Products and services of all descriptions are increasingly connected to the Web
Questions about the Web Platform
- How does a vendor or product company gain advantage if the Web is a platform without an owner?
- Does creating your own platform within the Web platform create a walled-garden?
- …
Useful apps are fundamentally powerd by data
- Databases are behind all of the market leading products
- Information is the core value
- Value has moved "up the stack" form software to information
The Race Is On…
- To own major the classes of data online: Search, classifieds, product reviews, location, …
- Many classes of data already have established "owners": Google, craigslist, Amazon, NAVTEQ, …
- Another driver: Why would someone use the second best source of data online when they can just use the best?
A map of opportunity…
But there are many classes of data online that are still unclaimed
Or for which the established leaders have a falrly weak hold (i.e. social bookmarking)
These include:
- Identity
- Public calendaring of events
- Parental control data
- …
A Key Question
- What is the best way to establish and maintain control of a hard to recreate set of data?
- The answer: The market leading firms online let their users primarily do it
End of part 2 – proceed to part 3