The New Web is About: You
A recent slashdot posting pointed me to an article entitled “The New Wisdom of the Web“. The article is interesting because it suggests that we are in the midst of a new dotcom wave. This time the driving silicon valley-types are hyping up user-generated or community-generated content. The article suggests that these sites:
… are leading a charge of innovators making hay out of the Internet’s ability to empower citizens and enrich those who help with the empowerment.
The main difference between the previous dotcom boom (turned bust) and this new dotcom boom is that:
… unlike the old boom, where entrepreneurs couldn’t get to the IPO broker’s office quick enough …
But, is there value in this new wave of dotcoms (that was absent in the old)? Can big companies and venture capitalists monetize their new dotcom acquisitions? This reminds me of an old article in Zdnet that states:
The whole point of Enterprise Web 2.0 is to put best practices for creating Web experiences into the hands of business people, Web designers, and users so that we make the most of the systems, users, and information that we have. For example, the vast, aging inventories of otherwise userful information is one of the bigger wastes in IT today. Web 2.0 encourages us to put it all online, make it user organizable, findable, and to build a community around it.
In summary, the article mentions that to monetize on Web 2.0 companies can:
- Make idle resources available to end-users directly. This allows end-users to find alternative uses for these resources. This is similar to Google’s and Amazon’s Extra Disk Space and clustering capabilities. If the company can’t make use of its resources then let somebody else make use of it and make money on the side.
- Letting users be co-creators. Because it is too costly to build things from scratch and with the resources of a single company. It would be better to tap into user-generated content to allow the commuity to generate and consume its own material. Just provide a means for these communities to be build and survive. Give new meaning to the saying allow both sides to trade and tax them.
- Nurturing unique and hard to reproduce data sources. Some assets are unique to certain firms. Google, Yahoo and MSN can use their search expertise and email communities as value. Yahoo, AOL and MSN can leverage on their Instant Messaging communities. Amazon can utilize their inventory of products and fulfillment mechanisms. Skype can utilize its voice compression expertise and user community. These are assets that make these companies special. These companies are then providing APIs to access these strengths to allow for alternative monetization. Google is the current leader in this monetization of critical resources effort.
So, will this new dotcom wave turn bust?
