web2.0: the basics
DESCRIPTION
Before the Web...Then came the Web...Then happened Web2.0...How Web2.0 Got its NameWeb2.0: An OverviewWeb2.0: Web as a PlatformWeb2.0: Harnessing Collective IntelligenceWeb2.0: Rich User ExperienceWeb2.0: Visual Design?Web2.0: Design PatternsWeb2.0: What is proprietary? What is the biz model?Web2.0: Beyond the web, beyond the community: Web3?Web2.0: Implications for MediaAre we going into a Bubble?Some creative Web2.0 applications?TRANSCRIPT
The next-generation online customer acquisition engine
THE NEXT GENERATION CUSTOMER ACQUISITION ENGINE
Web2.0Nimish Vohra | India Head, Regalix | April 7, 2023
+91 98453 34981 | Bangalore
The next-generation online customer acquisition engine
Before the Web…
… were competing computing technologies … some competing OS
And then emerged Windows as a major Platform…… with packaged software applications … with tightly coupled APIs… and frequent releases
The next-generation online customer acquisition engine
Then came the Web…
… with Client-Server technology … and, hyper-linking
This saw the emergence of sites such as… … Rediff, Geocities, Britannica Online, Directories (Yahoo)
And this was… One way web or read only web… Primitive interfaces (Netscape vs. IE)… Taxonomy (Yahoo directory)… Pull medium (sites needed to have stickiness to get users back)
The next-generation online customer acquisition engine
Then happened Web2.0 …
Blogger (read + write, comment) Wikipedia (read + write, review, debate) Flickr (view, upload, tag)
No directories: Tag content the way you want … … Not taxonomy but “folksonomy”… view what others have liked… recommend to others, and view others’ recommendations
A read-write, participatory web
The next-generation online customer acquisition engine
How Web2.0 Got its Name
The concept was born at a brainstorming session between O’Reilly and MediaLive International
Dale Dougherty, VP O’Reilly Background: Dot-com bubble had just burst Companies that survived had something in common
Could these be called the Web2.0?
The next-generation online customer acquisition engine
Web2.0: An Overview
Strategic Positioning The Web as a Platform
User Positioning You control your own data
Core Competencies Services, not packaged software Architecture of participation Harnessing collective intelligence Cost-effective scalability Re-mixable data sources and data transformations Software above the level of a single device
The next-generation online customer acquisition engine
Web2.0: Web as a Platform
Netscape vs. Google
Netscape Desktop application Strategy: sell high-end servers running
web applications Tried controlling standards for
displaying content
Google Web application Never packaged or sold Delivered as a service, with users
paying for the service, directly or indirectly
The next-generation online customer acquisition engine
Web2.0: Web as a Platform
DoubleClick vs. Overture, AdSense
DoubleClick Is a web service (like Google)…
… but is not participatory Advertisers call the shots, and not
users Bulky, contractual placements of ads
on large sites, for large advertisers
Overture, AdSense Any small advertiser can place an ad in
any small site They serviced the long-tail
Leverage customer self service to reach out to the entire web, not just the head, but the long tail too
The next-generation online customer acquisition engine
Web2.0: Harnessing Collective Intelligence
Hyperlinking: Sites are bound to the structure of the web by links Google’s breakthrough in search – PageRank – uses link structure
rather than type of content to provide search results Ebay – a collective activity of it’s users. Ebay grows as activity
grows. Ebay, only provides a platform Amazon – sells the same products as its competitors. But they have
higher user participation – reviews, different ways of interacting, user activity produces better results
The next-generation online customer acquisition engine
Web2.0: Harnessing Collective IntelligenceCompanies that have extended the above concepts
Wikipedia – an online encyclopedia: Radical change in the dynamics of content creation. Trust.
Del.icio.us, Flickr – pioneered “folksonomy” (in contrast to taxonomy) – collaborative categorization.
Cloudmark – spam filtering, by aggregation of individual decisions Linux, MySQL, Perl, PHP, on which most of the web runs, is relies
on open-source – collective, net-enabled intelligence
Blogging Usable technology (easy to publish own content, rather than using HTML or CMS) RSS – unique content delivery mechanism. Converts a pull medium to a push medium Bloggers, as the most prolific and timely linkers, have a major role in shaping search results
The next-generation online customer acquisition engine
Web2.0: Rich User Experience
Applet (1992) Java delivered Applet (1995) Macromedia’s Flash based “Rich Internet Applications”, many years
ago Full scale applications happened only with Gmail Technology that Google used was termed AJAX, which is a
collection of XHTML, CSS DOM XML, XSLT XMLHttpRequest Javascript, to bind everything together
The next-generation online customer acquisition engine
Web2.0: Visual Design?
Very user friendly Feature rich People are not shy to use color But lots of white More text than images Logos are rounded, colorful, playful? Again, very usable
The next-generation online customer acquisition engine
Web2.0: Design Patterns
Long Tail: Small sites make up bulk of the internet’s content. Leverage customer self service and automatic data management
Data is important: Try and create a unique hard to replicate data Users add value: In form of data (reviews, original content),
behavior Self-learning apps: Applications should be intelligent enough to
gather user behavior (top 10 views, highest clicks, etc) Rights reserved?: Benefits come from collective adoption and not
restriction. Always a Beta?: On the web one does not need to have software
releases. Change as often, if you improving the experience
The next-generation online customer acquisition engine
Web2.0: What is proprietary? What is the biz model?
Desktop applications were, now they are open source. Web applications were (advanced mail, etc), now they are not If for a news company, news is not copyrighted, and is freely
distributable, how does the news company make money? For some companies, such as MapQuest, it would be data they can
license. Companies like Google are already giving this data out freely.
So in the end, it is not products, not services, not data. It is the amount of traffic you can garner. More traffic could mean more revenue opportunities in terms of ads.
The next-generation online customer acquisition engine
Web2.0: Beyond the web, beyond the community: Web3?
Making it collaborative. Making it a web enabled service. Moving completely away from the desktop storage Moving away from desktop applications.
Web3 – some thoughts: All pervasive, always on. For the businesses.
The next-generation online customer acquisition engine
Web2.0: Implications for Media
Publishers now no longer leverage all the content It is now easy to create content (Blogs) It is now easy to distribute content (RSS, feed-readers)
The next-generation online customer acquisition engine
Web2.0: Are we going into a Bubble?
Yes! There is a lot of frenzy to innovate. And lot of money to back it with. And some of the applications don’t really make any sense! E.g.,
myLot. To me, even MySpace does not make much sense, when compared to Orkut!
But again, innovation never goes waste
Finally, you are safe if you are thinking about the user, have a clear reasoning of how this is useful. Don’t be a part of the fad
The next-generation online customer acquisition engine
Web2.0: Some creative Web2.0 applications?
Zopa: Taking money lending to the masses Zimbra: Messaging and collaboration Tictrac: Online time tracking World66: A wiki on Travel NetworthIQ: Track your networth online OpenID: Single identity across all applications Foldershare: Keep your files online HousingMaps: Craigslist + GoogleMaps: A mashup
The next-generation online customer acquisition engine
Thank You!
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.-Chinese Proverb
Nimish Vohra
India Head, Regalix
+91 98453 34981 | Bangalore