As the 2.0 world is heating up with more money being thrown out into the wild by the big companies for acquiring “start-ups”, “service providers” and “platform operators” the big questions arises: “When will this money burning ever stop”? What is the future of 2.0?
Many experts are now discussing about the end of the 2.0 era and about a bubble that is going to burst like it did 7 years ago in the times of the 1.0 web. Back in 2000 the web was the darling of the media and big investors. Everybody was putting high expectations into the new media without asking the question if all those activities and investments would ever provide real revenue.
A new cash burner?
Nowadays 2.0 services get featured even in yellow press magazines and MySpace and YouTube became household names. Everyday a new start-up launches offering media mixing, social matching, data mashing services and other buzz word laden features. And once in a while one of these services appears on the radar screen of the big companies and gets bought for millions of millions of dollars. While it is true that a lot of cash (or stocks) is used by companies like Google to acquire other companies and services what needs to be looked at is if these investment are justified or not.
Unlike the 1.0 bubble this time monetizing investments is part of the plan. The currency in this 2.0 world is user data.
Data means money
In a way 2.0 is not so much about user driven or user created content. Of course to make this game work you first have to make the users become the contributors. 2.0 is more about collecting and analyzing data in a way unseen before. This new web is not just a social web but an interlinked and ever-growing knowledge database about online user behavior. It started with search engines (Google) or sites like Amazon collecting users data and then providing the user with results (and ads/recommendations) based on the users preferences and online usage patterns. Compared to advanced WebOS concepts like GMail, Google Documents or Google Calendar and SNS platforms like Facebook, Mixi. Mobage this sounds like kindergarten. These systems can collect, track and analyze each mail users receive or write, each document they create, appointments they make, friends they have, their likes dislikes, music tastes and so on. In a next stage this could then be used for example to offer highly personalized ads. (So called “Persotisement”.)
Personal TV
The latest trend of IPTV/online video is another example: before it was not possible to analyze the TV viewing behavior of each individual apart from some specific panel tests. Now with services like KDDI Hikari TV, JoostTV, Yahoo BB TV or even Youtube this is possible. What users are watching for how long and when can be measured without any problems. The performance/value of actors, shows and ads could even be measured in real-time based on the point within the broadcast when users start to “opt-out” by switching channels or turning off the system/application. (Intra-broadcast performance, chapter performance) Providing personalized ads/special offers or recommendations based on individual viewing patterns is already being tested by several of the big players.
Google even announced it is planning to create a personality profile based on users online gaming and browsing behavior and offer their clients the opportunity to pin-point their advertisements to these personality profiles. While 2.0 was about collecting user data, the post 2.0 era will be about the utilization of personal data by marketers. Data equals money, more precise data equals more money.
The end of 2.0
So what will the end of 2.0 look like? It will not be like a harsh end as seen in 2000 when the dot,com bubble burst. It will be more like a transition: The end of 2.0 might be a bit similar to the end of the Flower Power movement of the 60s and 70s. The idea of one big community, of sharing, mash-ups and personal creativity brought a spark of change to the world but in the end “the establishment”, the media and marketers absorbed this movement and its ideas and commercialized it.
How to survive
So is there a chance for those small garage shops, university start-ups, young innovators to grab a piece of attention and a piece of the cash cake even in a post 2.0 world? Yes there is as long as they cater to the needs of the industry in the long term.
Can the service or the platform help to attract users, make them spend time and most of all can it help to collect data? Does it offer new ways to measure, evaluate data and distribute (personalized) content to users? As long as the service or product helps to significantly create, refine or personalize data, it has a monetary value for the company who acquires it. Personalization will be the buzz word of web 3.0 or to put it in a more monetary word “Persotisement” (personalized advertisement)
So what?
What still needs to be discussed is if this “data collection and data profiling” development is good or bad. On the one extreme is the Orwellian scenario of “big brother is watching you” and on the other extreme is the reduction of complexity for online users providing them with exactly what they are looking for. (Who needs a Google search result with over 1 Million hits if you are just looking for one specific result).
In the end it will be up to the user to decide if this movement is beneficial for him or not. Marketers already made up their minds.
