Web 2.0 Finale (3) Finally blended in Web 1.0
A gradual blending of old and new.
[+] Web 2.0 is direct marketing
In the traditional business world, it may not be difficult for start-ups to innovate or produce good products, but it surely takes much more efforts for them to channel products to end-users. Finding a channel may not be very hard, but it would cost you dearly. Capitalist who own channels are tough guys to deal with.
Ten years ago the emergence of the Internet brought some changes for the first time. For Internet start-ups, their products are websites, and their services can reach end users directly. They don't need other channels. This was how the advantage of the capital-intensive newspaper industry, which controlled the distribution channel, gradually dissolved. The Web 1.0 world has taken its place.
This new channel of the Internet has impacted on traditional media, traditional business models and also traditional communications. Generally, in the Web 1.0 era, there are a lot of people with only a small capital starting their businesses. They can do so because they've found a low-cost marketing channel to break the blockade set by traditional capitalists.
Yet after 10 years, some startups, such as Yahoo!, have become new capitalists. They control the distribution channels and suffocate the chances of new Internet startups, which have to buy expensive advertisements from "traditional" channels - Web 1.0 websites - to draw visitors to their websites.
Many years ago in the traditional business world, there was a new channel called direct marketing. It was about bypassing the traditional distribution channel by marketing through social networks. Today with so many tycoons in the Internet, how can we avoid them and do business in a low cost way?
The answer lies in social networks. Web 2.0 startups make ingenious use of social networks or interpersonal relationship to do low-cost marketing. To market through social networks is a very smart strategy. Without this, we won't see significant growth in these new websites' user-base and traffic.
[+] Back to the basics is the key to growth
Many people have the experience of buying products via direct marketing, but they don't have much confidence in it. People who participate in the direct marketing system constantly come and go, making it not very stable. Web 2.0 services attract new users through interpersonal relationship in a similar way. Moreover, a brilliant marketing strategy still cannot solve the inherent problems of products.
The first article of this series talks about two problems of Web 2.0 websites. The first is high user churn rate, and the second is that once users decide to leave, they won't turn to other competitors but will quit all websites/services of similar kind for good.
For a website operator, this has two implications. Firstly, users who leave your competing websites won't go to yours, which means you have to target at first-timers. Think about those users who are still new to the market, and they are the ones your products should be designed for.
Secondly, users will leave sooner or later, so most importantly you should strive to capture heavy users. Only heavy users would migrate among Web 2.0 websites of similar kind or try new websites. An important step for your website to succeed is to seize this group of users.
Once a website can control a certain group of heavy users, it can then start to think about how to either make profits or stay small and survive gracefully, like all successful community websites. However, is there any way to expand the user-base by drawing in less-active users?
My suggestion is, get rid of the strong community atmosphere and cultural ambiance! They are incompatible with things that can meet people's basic needs, such as storage, tools and content.
These things, simply put, are products of Web 1.0.
[+] Next step: storage, tools and content
The founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerbery once said that Facebook is not a social network but a social tool. His words are often interpreted as "Facebook as an operating system or platform," and Facebook's open API implies such possibilities.
His words are impressive because he points out concisely that the key to get big is to serve as a "platform." My understanding of his words is that platforms and tools are things that have little to do with culture. They can be used by anyone and don't require users to change their habits.
You use Gmail to write emails and MSN to send messages very easily. These tools don't have much to do with culture (at least not as much as online community websites.) Operators who have been focused on developing a vibrant online community to retain active users need to think about what are the tools that are not so hot but can be used by all.
Instant messaging (IM), a tool that is highly related to social activities, is one example. For the past ten years, the IM market has been very stable. If a social networking service (SNS) provider with several hundred million users launches a new IM tool, it may have the potential to change the market dynamics.
In addition, people get tired of social activities once in a while. Maybe a user just needs a space to store their photos, documents and bookmarks. S/he doesn't want anyone to know the URL of his/her homepage or to bother her/him with status alerts. Is it possible that a SNS website can provide such functions?
Storage is one of such basic needs. Some active users may be happily busy with various social activities all day long, but there are still more people who need only basic services. What will make a user to keep on visiting a website once s/he gets tired of online social activities? Maybe s/he just needs a space to store pictures.
Active users visit a website because they need the social network there; other users do so simply because this is where they store their stuff.
[+] Web 2.0 evolution is about to complete
The third thing is content. This is easier to understand, and many Web 2.0 websites are doing it. For those who are not keen on social activities, let's give them some content. Using tags to aggregate content is a common method.
So at the end you'll find that Web 2.0 is still about the four pillars of the Internet, which I mentioned years ago:
content, community, communication, and commerce.
In Web 1.0, a website operator would start from providing content and then functions of online community, communications and commerce. In Web 2.0, an operator would start from developing communities and then content and communications tools and lastly commerce.
We finally get a clear picture of Web 2.0 in the context of our time. It's about a grand evolution of websites all over the world. The result will not be about replacing old websites with new ones, but a gradual blending of old and new.
Whatever it is in Web x.0, it is all to be used by people. And the humanity of people do not change.
- Read More
Prev : Web 2.0 Finale (2) Websites With a Specific Culture Can't Grow Big
- Today in History
Web 2.0 Finale (3) Finally blended in Web 1.0 - 2008/01/06
The Fourth Generation of Internet Marketing (3) IM Marketing - 2007/01/07
Recent Comments