A View on View :: Web 2.0: The So What Factor

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Web 2.0: The So What Factor

by Mark Evans on Mon 13 Feb 2006 07:52 AM EST | Permanent Link

I had to laugh when reading Mathew Ingram's dismissal of 3Bubbles.com, which is offering a real-time beta chat service. Mathew think it's cool but doesn't see why anyone should get excited about it. Truth be told, you could say the same thing about a vast majority of these hot Web 2.0 services/applications. Given development and distributing costs have tumbled, an element of the Web 2.0 eco-system is vanity projects/hobbies where the mantra is "If I build it, they may come...or not". If some of these services become popular, it may lead to some short-term frame, some love from Michael Arrington and Emily Chang, and if you're really lucky a deal with GYM. For all those geeks and semi-geeks out there, these new services are pennies from heaven - they're free, easy to use and completely disposable when the next cool thing comes along. Personally, one of the most intriguing parts of the proliferation of new services is how some of the dot-com ideas are being recycled. Look at the revival of online calendars such as 30Boxes or online storage such as xdrive and OmniDrive - ideas that came and went five years ago. Don't get me wrong, I'm loving this Web 2.0 party as much as the next guy. It's like being at an all-you-can-eat buffet where the kitchen keeps bringing out new dishes every five minutes. My only complaint is very few of these services have staying power from a user or financial perspective. Every so often, I look at my ever-growing Roboform menu and decide it's time to cull back many services that not so long ago used to be cool and interesting.
Update: I noticed a lot of clicks on the Roboform link and it struck that perhaps some people thought they were getting my menu. If so, I apologize for that. Here are some of the Web 2.0 services that appear on the Roboform menu: 30Boxes, Blogbeat, Dpolls, Feedster, FeedBurner, Pandora, Pluck, Rollyo, Skype, Slawsome, Tailrank, Wink, Writely, Squidoo, MeasureMap, Mybloglog, Flickr, Blogger, Adgenta, GOffice, Google Analytics, Gmail, Blogware.

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Re: Web 2.0: The So What Factor

by bigfish on Mon 13 Feb 2006 11:57 AM EST | Profile | Permanent Link

Userplane is the king of online chat apps and they only make slightly over a million a year.

I use them, myspace users them, american singles etc. They have thousands of clients. The space is not profitable.

www.userplane.com

Re: Web 2.0: The So What Factor

by Stuart MacDonald on Mon 13 Feb 2006 04:47 PM EST | Profile | Permanent Link

Profitable, sustainable, matters to customers. Profitable, sustainable, matters to customers. If it doesn't pass each of those filters, it's just noise. Yep, I'm a broken record. And proud of it.

-- Stuart

Re: Re: Web 2.0: The So What Factor

by Mark Evans on Mon 13 Feb 2006 05:02 PM EST | Profile | Permanent Link

i feel like i'm out in left field sometimes with this skeptical approach but i'm uneasy about the machine - michael arrington, VCs, etc. - promoting the wonders of web 2.0.

Re: Re: Re: Web 2.0: The So What Factor

by Stuart MacDonald on Mon 13 Feb 2006 05:21 PM EST | Profile | Permanent Link

Dude, yer sooo not out in left field. Business reality hasn't changed one iota - you know that. Not to say that there isn't a ton of value in doing research that enables things that ultimately make customer's lives better. There sure is, and I am certainly not discounting that. Hopefully, some of these things are incremental efforts that will ultimately be a part of making a difference for some group of customers. But, as you say, the whole breathless commentary about features-masquerading-as-businesses thing is waaaay too 1999 for my taste. Maybe folks just don't remember, or they weren't a part of Web 1.0 so they think this stuff is all shiny and new?

-- Stuart

Re: Web 2.0: The So What Factor

by Anonymous on Wed 08 Mar 2006 03:39 PM EST | Permanent Link

I'm not sure why so many people care that many businesses will fail. Most of these are side projects, but how is that bad? This is has been going on forever in the Valley. Long before Web 1.0. For every 50 projects there might be one flickr that really makes it big, but that's how this works.

The big difference is most people doing these projects are doing it with 0 funding. That's a big difference from Web 1.0.

baus

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