Are there any Web 2.0 businesses in the real world?
There are hundreds of companies trying to build Web 2.0 applications for businesses. But what are the hallmarks of a Web 2.0 business itself, as opposed to just a Web 2.0 product?
Echoing the Cluetrain Manifesto, Gregor Hohpe, a software architect at Google, worked with a small group of Internet company execs to come up with the following attributes of Web 2.0, presented as shiny new values competing with reasonable but conservative older values. It's certainly a relevant list if you're building an online product, but some (not all) of these values could apply to any business or product being built today.
- Simplicity over Completeness
- Long tail over Mass Audience
- Share over Protect
- Advertise over Subscribe
- Syndication over Stickiness
- Early Availability over Correctness
- Select by Crowd over Editor
- Honest voice over Corporate Speak
- Participation over Publishing
- Community over Product
It might be a gigantic mistake to apply Web 2.0 memes to the rest of the business world, especially since few Web 2.0 companies are making any real money. But I do believe what's happening on the Net is an early indicator of what happens in the real world, and that these dichotomies help us think about how business is evolving.
See also Tim O'Reilly's original paper, What is Web 2.0.
