Why not, I once asked Dave Winer, organize your next unconference in IRC, or maybe give up on the time-synch and conference in wiki? Nobody would come, said Dave. Even an unconference is much more than text on a webpage.
Text on a webpage is the ultimate fate of most Web 2.0 thunderbolts. Once the hot story scrolls out of Tailrank, Tech Memeorandum, or Technorati, its yesterday’s sushi and nobody wants to touch it.
Even so, let me be just maybe be the last to link to Russell Beattie’s “WTF 2.0″ critique of Web 2.0 business models. And, as a public service, here are some examples of how Web 2.0 does make money:
- …most successful businesses on the Internet are about aggregating the Long Tail…By overcoming the limitations of geography and scale,.. Google and eBay have discovered new markets and expanded existing ones.
- The availability of offbeat content drives new customers to Netflix – and anything that cuts the cost of customer acquisition is gold for a subscription business.
- In a Long Tail economy, it’s more expensive to evaluate than to release. Just do it!
- .. free has a cost: the psychological value of convenience. This is the “not worth it” moment where the wallet opens.
- Use recommendations to drive demand down the Long Tail. This is the difference between push and pull, between broadcast and personalized taste. Long Tail business can treat consumers as individuals, offering mass customization as an alternative to mass-market fare.
The pre-Web-2.0 source of these recommendations is “The Long Tail” (Wired, December, 2004) by Chris Anderson. Congratulations on your new book, Chris!