The more web surfing I do, the more I notice 3 big trends that is driving the so called Web 2.0.
These 3 trends can be summed up by 3 activities that users do - Blogging, Tagging and Contributing to Wiki(pedia).
To web pundits, this is nothing new. Many people are also aware of these activities consciously or unconsciously . Research had also started to accumulate in these areas. But to one intending to venture into it, there is need to grasp it and distill what these all mean in relation to what what one is doing.
Blogging
I had mused about how finely targeted web content are. Anyone can setup a webste to create very specific content, targeted at very specific group of people.
Everyone is empowered to be a publisher. The intention might not be purely commercial. It could be personal interest, a desire to share information (more about this later), the desire to have a say and not hear what the main stream mouth pieces have to say.
Together with a system like Google Adsense, this enables sites to generate revenue - albiet small, but still nice to have income. It is this ability to collect small revenue that is attractive to small publisher. A cent here and there does adds up.
Now, what about the marketer, business people, website owners perspective?
A lot had been said about personal selling, recommendation, word of mouth. People are realising this is a channel to influence others. Already marketers are recruiting respectable and well trafficed blogs to ’sell’ or to influence.
For sites, think of Amazon affiliates model. Provide ways for small publishers to collect small revenue will help them to help you promote product.
Tagging
What does Flickr, Gmail, 43Things, Del.icio.us have in common?
Answer: They all use self created tags to organise ideas and content.
What so powerful about this?
Tagging is much like categorising. But instead of someone creating categories and everyone trying to fit into them, Tagging allow individuals to classify information with tags.
For example, instead of filing an email under ‘work’ folder, one can tag it as ‘work’, ‘marketing’, ‘ideas’.
This simple example show how it works on an individual level. Sites like 43Things and Flickr take it to the community level. Immediately one can see who share the same tags and what they think of the same item or idea.
For example, one can tag ‘Going China’ as ‘tour’, ‘work’, ‘home’, ‘friend’. ‘Going China’ means different thing to different people.
How can this idea be used?
One way would be to use API which will be slightly technical. In this particular case, API are basically ways provided by a website to access their content. So Flickr or 43Things can provide an API to extract items tagged as ‘fun’.
This can be useful for market research, finding out what is popular at the moment, etc.
I think this is one area that will have growing importance. Imagine a online shop inviting visitors to tag their products. The owner can use it to find ideas that had not been thought of.
More importantly this seemingly haphazard way of organising and connecting ideas and people is a wellspring for many innovations to come.
Wiki
This many not be apparent to the casual Internet user. Still not many people know what is a wiki. But more and more people are finding useful information in a site called Wikipedia. They may not know how the content come about but it is a realiable source of information.
Why is this important?
Think of this parallel. Wiki is to information and knowledge what Open Source is to software. The implication of freely available information is likely much wider than freely available software.
Wiki is just taking off, give it some time and we will start seeig its impact.
How can this idea be used?
One will start thinking, information is money (and power). If wiki is giving it away like open source software, what is the business model, if any?
I have not fully figure out this one just like open source is still looking for business model.
My believe is that there will be a tipping point between free and commercial. At that point, creating more functions in software or more information cost more (money and time) and those needing them badly will have to pay. Of course the point is always moving forward. People wanting to gain will have to work at the frontier and keep pushing it.
The Future
Blog, Tag, Wiki are standalone concepts that mashes together, somewhat like 3 overlapping circles where there will be common intersections.
Expect to see more of them coming together in interesting ways.
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