|
  |
|
|
The Big Picture About Web 2.0
Dear Netrepreneur and Partner,
One unique answer to the “Why did the chicken cross the road?” joke goes like this: Colonel Sanders answered, “What?! Have I missed one?” ☺
Similarly, if you have not heard of Web 2.0 today, you are either a very new newbie or you have missed out a historical chapter in the life of the Internet. Not to worry, you can still brush up on your knowledge by going through this report. My purpose for writing is to get you focused on 2 currently hot aspects of Web 2.0: social networking and social bookmarking. I will touch on some other areas as well. First of all, what is Web 2.0?
In short, Web 2.0 is a term often applied to a perceived ongoing transition of the World Wide Web from a collection of websites to a full-fledged computing platform serving web applications to end users. Ultimately Web 2.0 services are expected to replace desktop computing applications for many purposes. If this sounds a little nerdy, you can read the details for a full-blown account. Truth be told, “Web 2.0” is nothing new. The label is quite a fresh spin to reflect a phenomenon that is ongoing and striving for full maturity. People may say, “There are 2 parts to the Internet: one before Web 2.0 and the other after it.” It just might as well be that “the 2 parts come before and after the creation of bulletin boards.”
That’s right. One of the key characteristics of Web 2.0 is participation, collaboration and moderation through the use of web applications. Web 2.0 sites derive their power from the human connections and network effects from this characteristic that is made possible, and grow in effectiveness the more people use them. According to documented history, the idea of Web 2.0 was first conceptualized by Tim O’Reilly in a conference in 2004, but its greatest impact was already felt by ordinary people, in 2002 and in the form of social networking, with the advent of Friendster. Friendster’s neat and simple interface gives users easy control and immediate power in self-expression (publish content, set preferences, promote personal profile and interests etc.) and managing a portfolio of inter-connected, like-minded individuals so they can feel like being a part of a community that accepts them instead of loneliness. As they get connected with more online friends, they can only be encouraged to send out messages to their personal friends (the closer, intimate ones) on their own initiative, inviting them to join Friendster and expand a new-found friendship network virtually. The repeated process snowballs the numbers.
Then what happens? When other wannabes like what they see, they began
Copyright 2007 Internet Mastery Center. All Rights Reserved. It’s A Great Day Today!
Pg 3 of 24
Monetizing Secrets Of Going Web-Social
thinking, “Let’s set up our own social networking site too!” and jump on the bandwagon. Some make it, some won’t; some smartly look at this Web 2.0 coin from the other face and made money secretly by coming up with easy-to-install Web 2.0 scripts to sell (that’s like making it rich by selling jeans and shovels during the Gold Rush).
As the business principle goes, you don’t have to jostle with the competition for a specific piece of the pie. It’s a good thing that the meaning of Web 2.0 is still all-encompassing and vague. In fact, the idea of “participation, collaboration and moderation” can take many forms. If you look back history, bulletin boards are one form, online forums are another, online multiplayer games, content management systems (e.g. Wikis, Joomla), dating sites and classifieds as well. If not for features that enable multiple users to create their own space within a website via registering accounts or at least leave a message (like a comment in a blog), the communication culture would have been one-way (from the webmaster to the visitors) and remain stuck in 1.0.
Why would a webmaster WANT to go Web 2.0? We learned that social networkers want to expand their personal network of online friends. On the other hand, the webmaster desires to build up a core group of active participants who unconsciously help to sustain the ‘liveliness’ and therefore the longevity of the website and its agenda or interests while the overall database of users expand. In this manner, a lot of the effort that goes into building the database (or list) becomes very much hands-off for the webmaster. There’s leverage. This is also where moderation comes in. The role of the webmaster naturally becomes that of the moderator, whose job is to maintain some semblance of order (but not to the point of creating a restrictive environment) and general site maintenance. It gets better when the webmaster can promote participants into moderators themselves, and more and more s/he becomes the “silent puppetmaster” behind the scene without doing much. It may not be easy, but the whole mindset of being a moderator is to gain confidence in just “letting it be” and letting his/her site runs by itself. Now that the webmaster’s motivation for going web-social is addressed, s/he must find ways to avoid competition by finding new twists to contribute to the Web 2.0 bandwagon. Much as new sites keep popping up in recent months, somehow no 2 sites are made the same and they certainly enjoy a good amount of traffic anyway. It would be better when you can boil down social networking to the context of a specific niche, like a site to exchange Mexican recipes or talk about Ferrari car accessories or business opportunities in Central Asia. You can better target the type of people you are looking for and it also gives them a sharper sense of purpose to engage with and within your site. Speaking of purpose, every activity must have a purpose and an end result. Social networking can be addictive and fun because it further adds a human dimension to the Internet but don’t get lost in it. This report does its best to share with you some techniques for creating value for your online friends so they can come back to patronize you again. |
|
 |
|
No reactions yet.
Please login or sign up to rate this intel.
Please login or sign up to add a comment.
The copyright for this content entitled "The Big Picture About Web 2.0" has been specified by the contributor as:
All Rights Reserved
This content may not be copied, distributed or adapted by anyone under any circumstances.
|
|
May, 2012
2008
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2009
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2010
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2011
January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December
2012
January, February, March, April, May
|
|
Not a member yet?
Qondio is a powerful network for making it online. If you have a website to
promote, we can help.
Sign up and get in on the action.
|
|
Welcome to Qondio! Discover the awesome power this network can deliver by going to our About page. Or you could skip straight to the Sign Up form.
|
|
