Web 2.0 – First look

After reading the O'Reilly 's article on Web 2.0 I recalled an article I read on NY Times a couple of weeks ago by David Pogue who talks about Web 2.0 as websites whose content is provided by the people. He also raises a question as to what would Flickr be without its photos, YouTube without the videos, Craigslist without the ads, eBay without the auctions, TripAdvisor without people's travel reviews?, and answers that these mega-sites would be only empty white pages if the audience didn't supply their materials. In his article he cites examples of the two people generated and collaborated Web 2.0 apps that are well-known such as Craiglist.org and Goloco.org - an upcoming carpool initiative in which passengers will actually pay the driver a little something for his trouble. He says that there is a similar cab service in England called Texxi: where you send a text message to a special address; computers field the requests and compare locations; and a taxi comes by to pick you up and other people who share your itinerary. All the passengers save money, and the cab company makes money. He says that this system works especially well when there are lots of people waiting in the same place: a pub or club on Saturday night, a football game that's just ended, and so on.

As I read this I realized that whatever was only talked about in Web 1.0 era such as ability to take advantage of Web services, having rich internet apps, to socialize and collaborate – all this were difficult but now it is realized –thanks to Web 2.0.

Pogue also adds that we haven't even scratched the surface and feels that there are dozens or hundreds of huge Web 2.0 ideas that have yet to materialize and how a website becomes popular is a mysterious thing that is dependent on factors like buzz, timing, software design.

I also wanted to research further on the degree of corporate involvement in the Web 2.0 realm and found this interesting pie illustration charlnorman.comthat shows a moderatly active participation.





These are the thoughts that crossed my mind when I saw this illustration with regard to the economic aspects. I feel that in order for these companies to sustain their service in the long run these companies have to come up with the economic model that is either fee-based or advertisement driven. This is required because Web 2.0 applications are cost-driven and have to be economically feasible