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Read it, comment, and share it with your friendsWeb 2.0 I$ About Money
“Web 1.0 was commerce. Web 2.0 is people…”
- Ross Mayfield, the CEO of SocialText, a company that sells collaborative wiki software to enterprises and that is hosting the Web 2.0 wiki. Source
I’ve got one thing to say, one thing only… and I already said it. Web 2.0 is about money. Web 1.0 was about money too. Before that, the world of computing without the Internet was also about money. TV was, radio was, print media was, and all of them still are, about money. No matter how noble the other reasons for anything anyone ever did in any industry, it was first and foremost about money. The fact that I can upload videos and share links and blog for free does not change the motive of the companies selling their services. No amount of overgrown hippies and hype-filled buzzword talk should convince you otherwise.
The fact is, Web 2.0 ain’t nuttin’ but a thang. Let me sum it up for you. The big change some call “Web 2.0″ amounts to some guys figuring out how to do the following:
var moneyMachine = new XMLHttpRequest();So what if there’s new technology? So what if companies offer user participation? So what if syndicated content is the new force in media? That doesn’t mean it’s about people. The people play a part, but it’s more like this:
Just to expound my point, I think these images make it obvious:
So what?
Despite all this, here’s the clincher: Web 2.0 is about money, and that’s fine with me. I could go on and on about philosophy and economics, but I think one line sums it up: “ya gotta pay the bills.” You see, I admire honesty, and if any software pioneer took a moment to stop flapping their marketing holes and just tell me, straight to my face, with a smile,
“I have a new product, and I’m going to use it to milk every dollar I can get”
… then I would shake their hand and say, “Go right ahead.” It’s work. Skills to pay the bills.
What bothers me is when people somehow buy-in to the hype and claim that “Web 2.0″ really is about people. The people’s revolution and stuff like that. Hippie talk. Let me offer a more levelheaded idea here, and then we can forget that I ever used the term Web 2.0 in any seriousness:
- Developers make new products (nothing new)
- The best products are great for users (also nothing new)
- Successful companies make money (see a trend?)
It’s not just reality, it’s the American Dream 
Now that I’ve empowered you with a better understanding of what Web 2.0 is really all about, go forth and be sheared!
Update May 31: Yehaa, nothing like a current event to prove my point: O’Reilly sets out to trademark the term “Web 2.0″.
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Responses to my articleWeb 2.0 is just a label and people wear it like a Gucci shirt. To me, Web 2.0 is the marketing terms side and therefore linked to the green show me the money notion behind every intention. This happens and again the bubble will burst because the green stuff will run out along with the hype burning itself out.
Web 2.0 is a phrase that just says, “we’ve learned from the past what works and what doesn’t work.” It’s funny how it took hard falls to break-in these web-businesses to the capabilities of the Web. Yeah, nothing new, just something unrealized (rather, un-capitalized).
Ajax techniques work effectively when used correctly - take Gmail - but the amount of hype is pretty rediculous. Still, so long as it keeps the internet fresh and my job safe im not complaining.
Steve: I just about live on Gmail.
Christian: Join the club.
I love the picture of Mr Clean shaving the lamb.
Anyway, The Internet is all about making money, but then, so is television. and Radio. it’s a tough sell anymore to say that we have the higher ground just because we work on digital and not analog (and even that’s changing).
I’m beginning to have dissenting opinions about advertising on the internet, though; the final couple chapters of Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point deal with this. We’ve become immune to advertisements via email already, and ads on sites are on the way there too; google’s adsense seem like a dying gasp.
I’m sorry ! do you want me to take the image out ? I can just keep the link.
Pegase: You can keep it up.
In regards to web advertizing, one thing I’ve noticed with google’s ad-sense is that I’ve clicked on those ads in g-mail, more than at any other time…hardly ever when not reading e-mail. So it’s not that ads are usless on the web. We just need to re-invent a way of doing it where it is welcomed.
A great example are the TV ads on youtube or veoh. People watching them and circulating them are doing it for themselves but are in-essence doing what the adveriser wanted in the first-place. If Web 2.0 is going to be fully capitalized, it will be lead by observing the behavor of users (UI design, content circulation, and inovative meshups). At that point we will say we are in Web 3.0.
I agree on everything except the Wikipedia part. Call me naive if you want, but I really belive Wikipedia is not in it for the money. Of course they need some kind of economic support, because they don’t sell anything and have to keep up the servers. That must cost a lot of money! And maybe if they were funded by a government they would be called biased or something worse.
Just wanted to thank the site owner for linking to nemu-nemu.com. Thanks for reading.
Just chiming in on the Web 2.0 = money thing…
The other day I was reading on… I think it was DIGG… about Engadgets layout is all about making money. After reading that article then looking at the crowd of comments I had to wonder out loud if there was anything wrong with that?
If your site generates huge ammounts of traffic that must mean that people are reading you. Traffic USUALLY = bills as most bandwidth isn’t free. Anyone in their right mind would monetize their site if they are getting that much traffic to it.
Some of the Digg commenters made it seem like a sin to do this… as if web content should be free of advertising all the time. The web has become much like TV is today. If you want free content you’re gonna have to put up with advertising. Until theres a better way to do things or unless people are willing to PAY for their content to be free of ads this is the current status quo for most websites.
Hi Christian,
You commented on one of my old posts, and it got me here. Anyway, I would like to comment on what you have said you specialize in web site accessiblity. Sorry to ruin things, but I can tell you right now that is not true at all. How? Because your own website is inaccessible. The easiest accessibility thing to do is to put alt tags and the usual pop ups don’t show.
But in regards to your post, how can you say web 2.0 is about money, when a majority of the services are free?
Hey Ryan, good job staying on topic. I have a contact form for stuff like that, but since you challenged me here, I’ll answer here. I didn’t sell my site to anyone, so I guess I didn’t have to stick to my claim of being a web accessibility specialist. And I am. So there. Na na na.
And when you get a chance, do a view-source on this page. See how wrong you are? I expect an apology.
And in regards to your actual on-topic question, advertising. The services that survive obviously make enough money, because they cost thousands of dollars to run and still make a profit. They all get a lot of VC funds to start off, too. Rome wasn’t built for free.
Saying you are and actually are, are two different things, check your email. You failed section 508 accessibility guidelines, and you have 4 errors and 26 warnings via bobby. Just curious how you think you are with these errors sigh
Yeah, web 2.0 usually put google’s and now sometimes yahoo’s mimialistic ads to keep it free.
Ha ha ha Bobby. Everyone knows Bobby is just an automated tool. You can’t depend on it to decide whether or not a page is accessible.
And yes, “web 2.0″ services use obtrusive or minimal ads to make money without charging their users. Some of them make a lot of money. It’s a profit model. They are not benevolent saints providing the proletariat with magical services. It’s business.
Uh where did you hear that? What exactly do you use for testing then?
No some just want to get their name out there, and want a little return. Also depending on the project.
All the accessibility experts I talk to via mailing lists and blogs agree that automated tools are not sufficient for judging accessibility. Accessibility is best judged by user testing, and by actively comparing the work against the specs. When you know the checkpoints, the techniques for passing them, and more importantly, how assistive devices and accessible interfaces actually work, you don’t need some online tool to throw errors needlessly over the wrong details.
And on what planet do people not work for money? What’s “a little return?” What are projects for? Follow the paths of your own scenarios and see if they don’t all end up at money.
Yes it might be better to do it by hand, duh of course, but I highly doubt you have some of the tools/software that people with disabilities use, see JAWS. That’s a $200 program.
A number of people do. See most open source projects?
My question of late has been: What will happen to ‘Web 2.0′ if America suffers a currency crisis and the value of the dollar significantly declines? Will Web 2.0 be able to stand on its feet, less dependent on the notion of monitization?
It’s no secret that the dollar has lost significant value VS other currencies, especially gold, which is the safest non-fiat currency on the market. What will happen to Web 2.0, 1.5 and 1.0 if the dollar collapses?
I don’t think it would be much different than what would happen to all the other industries in the U.S… it might be that Silicon Valley and other U.S. hotspots would lose their dominance in Internet commerce, maybe to countries with more stable economies in Europe.
I’m not sure. The Euro is still very new and if the dollar declines more over the next year (as many people anticipate), the Euro will hurt too. The European economy, just like the Asian economies, depend on a strong American economy. They could differentiate themselves and grow their wealth independently, but I don’t see that type of thinking coming out of the EU at this time. Something like that would be risky and take time to develop, but it could also mean their survival if the US has problems ahead.
My question really boils down to this notion of monetizing everything ‘Web 2.0′. There is sooo much talk about it. Monetize this, monetize that. Well, will the monetizers care about Web 2.0 if the dollar’s value significantly shrinks? Will they jump ship? And how about all the people.. um.. I mean user’s and their ‘generated content’? Will they loose interest when the $ leaves? Or will they feel liberated?
I understand your original point that money follows the conversation. I’m just trying to figure out what will happen if our money loses its meaning.
Eventually, people (not governments) will have to develop new forms of currency so we can rebuild what our old currencies have destroyed. Now that’s where I see a lot of potential for ‘Web 2.0′ technologies and even Web 3.8 techno.
I’m not so sure about those dependencies… sounds like a very pro-American way to look at it. As far as I know, the U.S. is seriously in debt, trillions to foreign banks, the U.S. imports all its products from countries in Europe and Asia, and many companies have outsourced to places like Mexico and India. Also, a lot of companies in the U.S. have been bought out by foreign companies… I think it’s greater than 50% now of American brands are not owned by American companies. The world has changed quickly in the last 20 years… there’s a reason why the dollar has gone down.
Then again, if VC funds come from foreign investors, then what does Silicon Vallery care about the currency? I’m sure they don’t. What I wonder, is, when will those VC funds run out? Somewhere investors are going to start losing enough money to back out for good.
Interesting point on investors backing out for good. Funds may never run out entirely, but I could see a significant decline, which would hurt the industry. But how much would it hurt, and who would it hurt? Nowadays, there are a handful of successful startups out there that were funded with less than $100k, and I see that trend increasing. The tools we have today make all the difference.
Back to the dependencies. America (the Federal Reserve to be more correct) spent the last 35 years (at least) pushing the dollar as the world’s currency of choice. Over the years, central banks all over the globe have been liquidating their pallets of gold for pallets of paper US dollars. Now that trend is reversing. Faith in the dollar is declining substantially.
The problem for everyone is that we are all invested in the dollar. As you said, foreigners have purchased about half of our businesses. How and why? Because they have too many dollars. What else would they do? They can only exchange so much for their own national currency.
So no, my view is not pro-American. It isn’t anti-American either. My view is: Hey! We have a big problem and it affects EVERYONE!
I could be totally wrong. Only time will tell.
Points taken, I don’t disagree. We’ll just have to wait and see how things work out.
Web 2.0 is just a label and people wear it like a Gucci shirt. To me, Web 2.0 is the marketing terms side and therefore linked to the green show me the money notion behind every intention. This happens and again the bubble will burst because the green stuff will run out along with the hype burning itself out.
Ajax techniques work effectively when used correctly - take Gmail - but the amount of hype is pretty rediculous. Still, so long as it keeps the internet fresh and my job safe im not complaining.
Everything is about money. Web2.0 would not exist if it were not able to be commercialized.
I agree, without the monetizing factors of the web, there is no web 2.0, or there may be one, but it is a lot smaller than it would have been otherwise. If they said tomorrow that no commerce was allowed on web 2.0, it would be abandoned faster than the Mary Celeste.
Thanks for the great article! Is a big help for me
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