Web 2.5 - Leveraging 2.0 Technology
Web 2.0 seems old now. Twitter is swelling with people, Myspace has been around long enough it’s not cool anymore (depending on who you ask,) and Linkedin just got a $1 Billion dollar valuation. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg might even be able to grow facial hair now. Don’t worry about Web 3.0 - if you aren’t thinking about it already, prepare for Web 2.5.
Using the last web boom as the model, Web 2.5 is the wave of businesses that learn to leverage the technology developed in the Web 2.0 boom. Stop looking for the next big social media site or blog platform - start putting the existing technologies to use. Twitter, or microblogging in general, is still somewhat unfinished. The technology is basically there, but people are still figuring out how to use their addiction to this technology to make them, or someone else, money.
What should you be doing? Start by answering these questions:
Have you added a blog to your site?
Have you created profiles on relevant business social networks?
Does your marketing team have a plan for blog outreach or social media advertising?
Do you know where your customers network online?
Once you’ve thought about the answers to these questions, pick a site like Facebook, Linkedin, or Twitter and get started.
Tags: social-media, social-networking, web-2.0
June 30th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
I was always under the impression that “2.5″ implied the kind of visuals you’d see on a given site, and not about necessarily leveraging old(er) technologies.
Sites like Gaia, SecondLife, and RipLounge all capitalize on the 3-D creation of avatars, opting to set themselves apart from the static genre of page-defined profiles.
Am I wrong?
July 1st, 2008 at 5:59 am
Web 2.0 has a variety of definitions, depending on who you ask. There is definitely a Web 2.0 style of design, and leveraging user generated content is definitely a Web 2.0 practice, but these are really smaller components of a larger term that really began with the socialization of the web. This example might better illustrate my point - Amazon.com selling books online was a Web 1.0 business, whereas, Amazon.com’s user generated product reviews and feedback system is a very Web 2.0 business method. Hope this helps.