Web 2.0 I$ About Money
Posted May 15 in Flock It.
“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″.
I aprrove of this
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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.
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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.
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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.
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But in regards to your post, how can you say web 2.0 is about money, when a majority of the services are free?
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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.
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Yeah, web 2.0 usually put google’s and now sometimes yahoo’s mimialistic ads to keep it free.
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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.
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No some just want to get their name out there, and want a little return. Also depending on the project.
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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.
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A number of people do. See most open source projects?
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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