What the hell is Web 2.0 all about anyway?

Web 2.0 has heralded a shift. Existing wisdom on the net on which previous generation products were based has been rudely challenged and effectively proven to be outdated.

Catering to the Long Tail

Niche websites are on the rise and account for the majority of websites out there now. Initiatives like blogging have just spurred on the trend. The long tail has vital implications for advertisers since niche sites are visited by a very specific user group and provide great targeting opportunities and better ROI on the eyeballs.

Data as a differentiator

The Internet is built around specialized databases today. Whether it is an index of crawled websites or digitized offline data, the web is driven by data and comprehensiveness and searchability of the same differentiates products and services on the net. The need for control and ownership of data is so critical that online media players have even started backward integrating into content creation.

The importance of the User Base

In today’s internet economy, the user base is the key to success. In the past, a user base was all about eyeballs and advertising money. However, users are fast changing from being mere content consumers to being content creators as well. With the growth of annotations and what is popularly known as ‘folksonomy’, the user base has fast come up as a vital source for data enrichment. The era of categorization taxonomy is in the past now and online companies are fast moving towards an "architecture of participation" to allow users to actively help grow the data and hence the business.

Goodbye IPR

The days of IPR are fast coming to an end. IPR restricts users and makes the content economy very centralized. Web 2.0 is all about a distributed economy as epitomized by wiki-based products which thrive on user-generated content and have no issues with IPR promoting regeneration and reuse. The growing discontentment against DRM in the case of online music may herald a similar era in that field.

The Phased-out Launch

Online Products are no longer released one fine day as fully-tested fool-proof products. Phased out launches are common and the beta phase typically extends to almost the entire life-cycle with users actively chipping in as testers too. Features are added incrementally and the product stays in a perpetual state of Beta.

Mash-up era

Mash-ups are the order of the day. Take existing products and come up with an entirely new product, a new user experience, and hence a new way to get money, all this, without having to invest too much on the product creation itself.

Delivery on multiple platforms

Delivery platforms for the internet have extended beyond the PC to include a variety of handhelds. Products that launch well across all platforms go down well with the consumer. Consumers love freedom of use and portability and multiple platform compatibility is the thing for the future.