h55k
Monday, October 17, 2005
Is Web 2.0 just content
Its great to follow the bloggers in the social media space. From Danah Boyd to Ross Mayfield, there appears to be a well defined group that have strong interactions within a blogging community. It may even becoming at risk of a developing into self-referential group, but recent posts indicate that with the buzz around "web 2.0", that the conversation is changing.
And my understanding of the discussion is that if a group is defined around a special interest, what happens when the special interest changes? What happens when the general topic changes, and what happens when investment appears to further develop this area of social media?
Inevitably when there is growing activity around any area of interest, say blogging, investment funds come a calling with the intent of somehow leveraging this interest and activity for some monetary return. This will certainly change the nature of this community, and I would think there may be a couple ways that the market will be impacted.
First of all, the concept of ground up collectively organizing functionality on the web sounds like fun, but how is this of interest to investment. I guess one route is to simply create activity and then roll it into a large consumer platform such as yahoo, google or msn. An early stage opportunity clearly exists in the area on consulting and companies like guidewire and headshift appear to be emerging strong in this area. Lastly there is the idea of a "product" that has a specific transaction or service that people are willing to pay for. This seems almost antithetical to the concept of web 2.0, but sure to see some offerings in this area.
One development I would expect to see emerge would be the introduction of real or virtual activities independant of the content. Right now there appears to be a bias towards content in searching it, tagging it, sharing it, developing community around it, but I think there needs to be more defined activities. More the social media blogging community this appears to take the form of conferences such as the web 2.0 conference, the blogon conference, or the upcoming conference on social architecture.
These opportunities though are limited to a small group of specialists, and I think the "activities" around social media must emerge in a more populist form than focussed conferences for industry experts. Looking forward to see how this market develops.
And my understanding of the discussion is that if a group is defined around a special interest, what happens when the special interest changes? What happens when the general topic changes, and what happens when investment appears to further develop this area of social media?
Inevitably when there is growing activity around any area of interest, say blogging, investment funds come a calling with the intent of somehow leveraging this interest and activity for some monetary return. This will certainly change the nature of this community, and I would think there may be a couple ways that the market will be impacted.
First of all, the concept of ground up collectively organizing functionality on the web sounds like fun, but how is this of interest to investment. I guess one route is to simply create activity and then roll it into a large consumer platform such as yahoo, google or msn. An early stage opportunity clearly exists in the area on consulting and companies like guidewire and headshift appear to be emerging strong in this area. Lastly there is the idea of a "product" that has a specific transaction or service that people are willing to pay for. This seems almost antithetical to the concept of web 2.0, but sure to see some offerings in this area.
One development I would expect to see emerge would be the introduction of real or virtual activities independant of the content. Right now there appears to be a bias towards content in searching it, tagging it, sharing it, developing community around it, but I think there needs to be more defined activities. More the social media blogging community this appears to take the form of conferences such as the web 2.0 conference, the blogon conference, or the upcoming conference on social architecture.
These opportunities though are limited to a small group of specialists, and I think the "activities" around social media must emerge in a more populist form than focussed conferences for industry experts. Looking forward to see how this market develops.
posted by Peter Foley, 9:00 AM