The selection process for DEMOfall 08 (RWW is a media partner) is coming to a close and Chris Shipley has been blogging her thoughts about it. She's identified a number of trends in the 'class of DEMOfall 2008', one of which is this claim: the Web 2.0 cycle has come to a close. She also makes a case for an end to the 'free' model for web businesses.
I'm not sure that I buy either argument.
After first dismissing the notion of 'web 2.0' ("Web 2.0 has been more of a hype cycle than a business cycle"), Chris Shipley goes on to say that the Social Web has nonetheless delivered a solid platform:
"But the social Web - the true definition, we think, of this most recent wave - has sparked tremendous innovation. It has given us the "operating systems" for social networks, the culture of conversation and engagement, the discipline of rapid and disruptive development, and the technology basis on which to build reliable, scalable Web applications. In short, it's delivered a platform on which to build the next phase of the Web."
It's arguable whether there's much difference between 'web 2.0' and the 'Social Web'. We at ReadWriteWeb have been using both terms interchangeably over the past couple of years. But I do take Chris' point that, whether you like the term web 2.0 or not, what we've ended up with is a solid Web platform for applications and services.
So what's next? Chris identifies:
The first two points (distributed and smarter) have been themes we've expanded on many times on this blog. Regarding distributed web, last week we wrote about how companies need to have a presence on all major platforms. And regarding a smarter web, an example is the emerging market for Semantic Apps.
So, no argument from us on the first two points.
Where I disagree is the notion that the 'free' model of the Web has ended or will end soon. Online advertising has been a very powerful business model for many, including of course the master of this Web era, Google. While I do agree that consumer apps should explore alternative business models too, in my view the statement by Chris that "free isn't a business model" just isn't true. Clearly 'free' has been a business model for many - and will continue to do so as long as the online advertising portion of the total advertising pie keeps growing (which it is forecast to).
And to the central question of this post: has the Web 2.0 cycle come to a close? Well if it has someone better tell O'Reilly Media and TechWeb ;-) To my mind, unless we see a significant change to the Internet market or the pattern of innovation we're seeing (the Web as platform etc), the current era continues. But it continues to evolve - into semantic web, distributed web, and so on. That's the exciting thing and it's what keeps the creative juices flowing at RWW!
ReadWriteWeb is a partner of DEMOfall 08, being held September 7-9 in San Diego. Our readers can receive a discount rate of $2,395 ($600 off the standard rate of $2,995 and $400 lower than the July early bird rate of $2795) by clicking here for registration.
Image credit: hober
Comments
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Like Microsoft in the 80s, "Web 2.0" has been a triumph of marketing hype more so than technological advancement. A major benefit has been raised awareness of the importance of W3C standards compliance. A major cost has been the proliferation of WordPress wannabes swelling ranks already awash with self-credentialed "experts" who have no clue as to the business case behind effective web design.
Bruce Arnold
Web Designer
PervasivePersuasion.com
Miami, Florida
Posted by: Miami Web Designer | July 30, 2008 3:26 AM
While I agree with you that freeweb is not likely to go away anytime soon, I think that there is some truth to the broader idea that the present cycle of web2.0 is unsustainable. The problem is that the three basic ways in which we interact with the Web - create content, consume content, and engage in conversations - have now been decentralized and become heavily redundant. Every week brings a new startup whose goal is to become the next Twitter, but whose basic usage model doesn't really bring anything of genuine value to the majority of web users (excepting the elite early adopters), except yet more fragmentation of the online persona. We even have fragmentation of online persona aggregators! (tumblr, friendfeed, socialthing, ping.fm...). I think we are at an inflection point of sorts where ultimately is things continue on teh same path then web innovation will stagnate.
I discussed these issues a bit more in detail in a presentation I uploaded to slideshare - I invite you to take a look as I think it is highly relevant. One of my major themes is that the future of the web is folksonomy, not semantic web, which IMHO is much more of a read/write interaction.
Posted by: Aziz Poonawalla | July 30, 2008 5:02 AM
Richard,
Of course "Free" models won't be vanishing, but they will diminish as a percentage of business models adopted by startups going foward (imho). I see "Fremium" models on the rise going forward, with some elasticity injected (so maybe "Elastic Fremium) such that consumers oscilliate between "Free" and "Premium" services depending their opportunity cost thresholds etc..
Likewise, I also think the Web 2.0 wave is done, and by this I mean as the center of excitement and innovation. As a piece of the puzzle, Web 2.0 is here forever (imho), but we need to crack on with completing the (M)odel, (V)iew, and (Controller) aspects of the Web.
Next stop, (M)odel (structured linked data) as we already the (C)ontroller (Web 2.0 APIs / Services) in place, and likewise the (V)iewer ( (X)HTML, RIAs etc.).
I guess it is now safe and sound to describe the next frontier as Web 3.0 :-)
Kingsley
Posted by: Kingsley Idehen | July 30, 2008 8:02 AM
I would say that one of the most relevant upcoming themes is dealing with information overload. For instance, a good ideal of the buzz around semantics has to do with how it can help provide more pertinent info...
Posted by: jon | July 30, 2008 8:21 AM
Interesting post...
We like to neatly box history into distinct phases which sometimes works well. I think the idea of next-generation web will be perpetual as we have a long way to go to bring this medium to it potential.
Since innovation are rapidly happening in almost every tech segment they have a daunting exponential effect of created planned and unplanned leaps in breakthroughs.
Not thinking of the web as destination sites anymore but a truely distributed model, and a set of experiences that are intelligent, aware, useful, entertaining and consumer centric.
I personally hope, we get of the web2.0, web3.0 terminology, perhaps just call it beta.
Posted by: Michael Moir | July 30, 2008 9:48 AM
Just wanted to chime in that by asking a question AND ANSWERING IT in your headline, people like me don't bother to read it. We just open the post and page down to the comment box.
Posted by: Anonymous | July 30, 2008 12:19 PM
Great post, richard, though I have some disagreement to you (and Chris too).
There are some strange thoughts everywhere. Is Web 2.0 really more a hype cycle than business cycle? I don't believe so. Just take RWW yourself as the example, do you believe this site be so successful without Web 2.0? And indeed it is not just RWW, we can immediately raise many examples. Web 2.0 brings new vision and new opportunity to entrepreneurs who believe in Web 2.0. Isn't this fact a solid business cycle?
And indeed there are more. I will post my thoughts after reading yours and Chris' posts soon at Thinking Space. Both of you have brought us great thoughts on this important issue. But I think there are more to think.
Yihong
Posted by: Yihong Ding | July 30, 2008 12:21 PM
Yihong, look forward to reading your thoughts.
Anon, er... point taken :-? I won't answer my own questions anymore, at least not in the headline.
Posted by: Richard
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July 30, 2008 2:35 PM
I agree that the freeweb for consumers isn't going anywhere. As long as the cost of bandwidth and storage remain microscopic then all content driven offerings will remain free and ad-supported.
The area of the web that will continue to grow in both size and scope are enterprise applications. The more firms begin to offer actual services over the web the more enterprise applications they will utilize to handle the logistics. Web 2.0 has just started, now it is just gaining new dimensions and operating on a larger scale.
Evan
Posted by: Evan Moore | July 30, 2008 2:40 PM
Web 2.0 is semantics or a euphemism depending on how you look at it. But a term that has for several years now truly been ambiguous to a large group of library staff that work in the libraries but were left behind the big wave of Web 2.0. Bringing staff up to speed in this area is important so that they can empathize with patrons and perhaps find their own niche.I like the term Social Network. It sounds much better than Web 2.0 and explains itself nicely.
Posted by: Rochelle Carr Paradise Public Library | July 31, 2008 7:24 AM
Thank you, Richard. The comment I promised is at here.
Posted by: Yihong Ding
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July 31, 2008 11:13 AM
Surely you are disagreeing on a mute point? So maybe the cycle has come to an end, to take a new form? Like you say - Semantic, Distributed. This is surely a new cycle and a new phase? Web 3.0?
Free is here to stay for sure. It is a key factor in disrupting and shrinking markets that are behind, that charge subscriptions that could otherwise be offered for free. By being free they become literally free to scale, hence infinitely more scalable and viral.
This viral growth in specific areas then enables far more than traditional subscription... Beyond target driven marketing it means when you are searching for something related to say, sports, you can then stumble across information or adverts that you would not otherwise see, when within a narrow subscription based service.
This is not to say subscription should be disregarded. Subscription and Free need to be merged in a way that empowers both users and advertisers. Models need to be merged, not pigeon holed or disregarded.
Right?
Posted by: Suraj Singh | July 31, 2008 5:28 PM
A possible solution to these issues with beneficial side effects would be to add weightings to tags via a simple vote up or down mechanism. The base layer of tags could be applied by either content creator (unvotable) or automatic tagger, then futher refinement of the tags by other users adding, or voting up or down on existing tags could occur. A tag voted to a score of zero would be removed until independently added by another user, making the community moderation of rogue users a far simpler task.
The potential benefits of the weighting could include navigational aides like most activity, most controversy, similar, recent and of course search and discovery…etc on a per tag, or tag grouping level. Personal tags, for bookmarking/re-discovery could be included (with the other tags) by a simple syntax differentiation ie. /Research Ideas/.
Posted by: Allan | July 31, 2008 7:42 PM
Late to the discussion as usual, but for the record I think it is nice to see the Distributed Web pointed out as a coming trend (dare I say Web 3.0? I know Richard doesn't like that term). I once suggested that the Distributed Web could be used as a term for the use of APIs and web services, "signifying that a web site's content is consumed at multiple destinations through its API".
I wrote about this and some other recent Web 3.0 proposals on my blog.
Posted by: Jonas Bolinder
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August 5, 2008 1:57 AM
The FREE business model has many advantages but also comes at a cost. If poorly executed it leads to:
1. Destination sites and Walled Gardens
2. The network being more important than the user
3. Forced attention on advertisement
4. Customer lock-in instead of Customer freedom
In general I feel that a model in which users end up paying for the value they receive is a much better model. Freemium is probably one of the successes in that area. Provide a raw service for free and ask a reasonable fee for extra useful functionality. People want to pay for value. And the extra benefit is that the service provider is focused on providing the user with value, instead of looking at the four points I mentioned above.
Posted by: Alexander van Elsas | August 5, 2008 4:46 AM