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It's all in the Community - Why Web 2.0?

02/04/07 21:05 Filed in: Unlimited, the speed of thought



A few years ago, i went on record describing the web as "..either man's greatest single achievement, or the world's largest collection of junk...". Every-one was suddenly a publisher, able to put their thoughts, products and platforms up there for the whole world to see. Editorial control was largely missing, and you were competing in the ruthless world of search-engines to separate your inspired oratory, from the lunatic fringe.

Today, the world has moved on. Yes, there is still the world's largest collection of junk. But believe me, if your company is not preparing to play in the new collaborative world of the World Wide Web, then you should be prepared to lose, and lose big. I mean, lose your customers, your business, and any chance of ever getting back in the game.

eBay bought Skype for $2.6 billion. Not bad for a company that gave stuff away for free. What was worth this amount of money? The reason for the huge price tag was 54 million users. I personally think that ebay got not a dollar of value for the acquisition, for a number of reasons, but the idea of acquiring whole communities is what Web 2 is all about.

In Web 1, the big effort was to acquire customers through general marketing practices. Market segmentation, contact plans, statistical analysis. The aim was to sort the customer community into those who would buy your products, and those who would never come near them. Target the potentials, and make the best use of your marketing budget.

Web 2.0 is about the market segmenting itself. Communities of people gravitating towards those things which truly interst them, and then making their own contributions. So all the people who are interested in China Dolls can be found on the forums in the China Dolls community site. 99% of the people contributing there are interested in China Dolls, or are interested in people who are interested in China Dolls. They have self-sorted the market for you.

By providing the tools, forums, committees, Wikis, Answer boards to allow people to contribute, meet each other, complain, get married and have other new consumers. you are building an environment where you OWN the community. You get to be the winner, and where there are winners there are losers...