Secrets of the Web 2.0 World – What Secrets? 2009 Prediction – Groups Become Productive

Wall Street Journal posts a story about the secrets of the web 2.0 world. The issue is “What Secrets?”.

Web 2.0 is a phenom that is disrupting all industries. The Social Web or whatever you call it has arrived. The idea that it’s just a marketing platform is only one thread of the benefits of Web 2.0. Sure having engaged users is great, but what about the impact on invention, learning, collaboration, user experience, new venture creation,.. etc. The Web 2.0 phenom will create massive change.

What Secrets?

Web 2.0 isn’t some unknown thing. Many think there are secrets but it’s pretty simple the web connects people and people work together. The core issue is that no one has figured out what it is and how to harness it. That is the public little secret. Many of my friends are building companies to enable this new discovery. The innovation will come from leveraging the web 2.0 platform to create new forms of apps (some may just be show up on the IPhone app store).

My prediction in 2009 is that you’ll see group productivity increase dramatically. As ‘trust’ becomes more central this year so will the relationship that bloom from it. That is where the productivity angle will kick in. Call social networks a ‘recession product’ or a new work tool – it will matter starting in 2009.

Web 2.0 is upon us in full force and the impact from work to play will be disruptive EXCEPT now will see it become known. The people who can harness it will win – from marketers to users to institutions.

Twitter is the Ultimate SmartMob – The Money is in the Collaboration

It’s no surprise that Howard Rheingold loves and is addicted to Twitter.  I have been at the center of social networking and social media from day one and have seen tools come and go.  Twitter is the real deal. 

Many people don’t get it and will never get it.  Where’s the business model – they cry.  Many see Twitter as a geek utility – a low cost to run utility.   It is clearly a solid communication utility. 

Where’s the Beef people ask?   Two Areas: 

1)  Communication and Coordination:    At PodTech we did many social media experiments and one of them was implementing Twitter mobs to drive brand awareness – we used as a communication tool to create an engaged “smart mob”.  Did it work.  It sure did. 

2)  Smart Collaboration:   Another area that Twitter rules is what I call the “smart collaborative mob”.   This is the Web 2.0 “holy grail”.   

Let me give some examples:  I have been personally using it this way for sometime in vetting out my next venture.  Also, more publically take a look at Seesmic and Loic Lemur.  He is actively using Twitter as a collaboration tool to build his business – I love that about Seesmic.  Just this weekend Loic Lemur was going through 900 feature ideas from the community – talk about smart mobbing for collaboration.  It’s open source entrepreneurship – high quality, efficient and low cost.

Twitter is one major component for Social Media but it can’t be used unless it has a community.  

Where’s the big business model in Twitter? 

Answer:  “Smart Collaboration”

Who owns it:?  Everyone

Who makes money:?  Everyone and Twitter

Yahoo Please Join OpenSocial: Hey Jerry Yang – Go Social and Get Open Now; It’s all Jelly

Jerry:  It’s time to join Open Social.  Now is the time to change the game.  

I’ve been posting a lot on Yahoo recently first on Yahoo at CES and then on their stock performance.  I believe that Yahoo can be a big player in web 2.0 and social networks.  Yahoo can be competitive and might just have the answer in being the next Google-like performing company.  Specifically, Yahoo has already helped pioneer RSS and widgets (with Konfabulator).  Now it’s time for Yahoo to join open social.  Yahoo has the assets to make a difference in web 2.0.

The three things that I would do right now if I were Yahoo:

1) Join OpenSocial immediately – like tomorrow

2) Do a major stock repurchase – joining OpenSocial and going open will cause some stock performance in the short term so it’s no better a time to do a stock buyback. Show everyone you’re in it for the long haul.  Don’t sell.

3) Port all your products to be web 2.0 enabled including social networking environments and data portability.

These three things can propell Yahoo to the front of the line in term of being competitive while delivering user value.   

My prediction:  Yahoo will join OpenSocial.  By joining OpenSocial Yahoo can take advantage of their huge subscribe base, lead the open data movement, and leverage the user behavior trend in social networking and widgets.

It’s the bread and jelly that Yahoo needs. It already has the peanut butter. 

Jerry Yang took over as CEO this past June and announced it here on his blog.

Facebook Beacon: Kara is the Pot Calling the Kettle

In the 60 minutes interveiw of Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg (which I thought was a puff piece) Kara Swisher is highlighted as the expert in Facebook.  Kara deserves to be on there because she has been following Facebook hard for a while.  I like Kara and read her blog.  Kara is a pro journalist, but I fell off my chair at the end of the interview on her comment on Facebook’s beacon product.  I have to call foul on this one Kara. 

Kara: I respectfully disagree with you.  First, I think that you’re wrong on your take on beacon.  You said Facebook was wrong for doing it and not explaining it.  Then you go on to basically question their judgement.  I disagree with you.  Beacon is a good thing for Facebook and for users.  I think that Facebook rolled it out the wrong way, but it was a good move for Facebook.  It’s a competitive advantage weapon for Facebook and a possible innovation lever for their user experience (and for future monetization).   Secondly, you have a relationship Google and know that Google practices the same techniques as Beacon (can we talk about gmail, data centers and toolbar among other similar data driven innovations).  By your logic Google is wrong and has bad judgement.   Competing on the value of data extraction is precisely what Google built their brand on and it is what drives their ad monetization business. 

Both Google and Facebook derive their products core value propositions from the aggregation and knowledge about data and data relationships. 

Here is the 60 minutes interview. Note: Bill Gates was 17 when he started Microsoft.

Two Parts: 

Part I

Part II