1/23/06 - Web 2.0ver? - I don't know about that, but I certainly haven't seen anything great lately.  Perhaps we're passed web 2.0 and have moved to web 2.1 - the build where everything is based on classified ads and scraping others hard work.  That's all I've really seen lately (and I mean lately in a very narrow sense), but this seems to be where web 2.0 is headed. 

Hype as of late seems to be focused on aggregators (scrapers) and classifieds sites - but these aren't thrilling.  Scrapers are just a parasite on the net - they may be helpful temporarily, but they are parasites.  If I create content, but someone else is going to steal it and put it along side other content so that users only have to go to one place and no longer need to go to my site, then what's the point of me working hard to create content if users never have to come to my site?  There is no point, and long term (oh yeah long term, how easily it's forgotten when hype is in full force) quality content will be stifled.

What about classifieds? These are certainly useful, but what's all the hype about? Is this what the web is about? Advertising?  Is this why people want to pay more for high speed access, so that they can find new ways to look at ads?  I doubt it.  I'm all for business models, but lets see some creativity - and let's see something sustainable.  It's no longer hard to see why terms like bubble 2.0 are thrown around so much, a lot of mistakes and undeserved hype is starting to circulate.  So what's a web 2.0 company to do?  Wait.  That's right, wait.  Why did Google outlast so many others?  Because they waited and they worked on their technology first. Create great products and services NOT HYPE.  Be sustainable and desirable, and most importantly think long term. 

  technorati tags: bubble, web 2.0

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.