Web 2.0 and Business Models

«In the Web 1.0, the user was consuming content created by someone else. In Web 2.0, the content is created by the user. 1.0 is an "architecture of consumption," and read-only," the Web 2.0 is "architecture of participation,". On the old Web, the user is the audience, in the new Web, the user is participant.» O'Reilly

With this change of positions, regular user is given the power to interact, to decide what he will, or not, talk about…and recommend. And this “free advertising” is priceless. And big companies know it.

As the marketing professional Evelyn Rodriguez says in her weblog:

"You want to know where the big money is coming from on the Internet nowadays? Look in the mirror. Online businesses are increasingly finding revenue in capturing content from users like you. Companies are making money by providing tools and services that let you write stuff, take pictures, organize your information, and publish it to the Web."

Acording to her, examples of this are: ”blogs and the companies that make the software and services to publish blogs; photo-sharing services like Flickr, community-bookmarking services like del.icio.us online organization services like Backpack, and social-networking services like LinkedIn and Orkut.”

This change brought some important changes to the way Business Models are seen. According to Peter Rip, Web 2.0 needs a 2.0 Business Model. To this author, Micropayments, Shared Value and New Revenue Networks are the concepts to be know and be used.

Web 2.0 und Bürgerjournalismus

Citizen journalism is, nowadays, a reality everywhere. Everyone wants to share their experiences regarding who or what they see, things that happen where they live. This storytelling trend started with Web 2.0, when Internet introduced open sources platforms and easier ways to share content, like the weblogs.


As Jose Murilo Junior says ”The Web 2.0 entrepreneurial attitude has a bigger chance of succeeding because of it’s close connection with collaboration and multi-platform content. Everybody is reading more, creating more, collaborating more. (…)Web 2.0 is THE tool for freelancers.”
Dan Gilmor, author of the book “We the Media” defends that citizens are getting into journalists` space in the media, by using Internet and mobile to tell what is going on and show exclusive photos.
Quoting the author: “With the new technology, like Internet and mobile phone, media got democratic. That doesn’t mean that people have more rights, but that everyone can participate in the communications process.”
It is a phenomenon that cannot be stopped. As a matter of fact, some of the most well know media, like the French newspaper “Le Monde”, are giving more and more space to citizen’s contents. In their website, the readers can create a weblog. The "most read" are announced at the main page and some of the authors are paid to keep them.
In fact, this phenomenon is so strong that, in some countries like Brazil, there is already a magazine whose contents are entirely produced by readers. Once a week, it is possible to buy "Sou+eu!", a magazine “with real stories told by the readers themselves”.
And they will not do it for free. Each writter is paid according to the size and type of text. Instead of producing contents, journalists will just have to check and edit the text produced, as it happens nowadays in Internet.
As Dan Gillmor was told in the 80s, "One of these days journalists are going to find out what people actually want to read. And that should scare the hell out of them".

“it’s not a bug, it’s a feature!”

What is Web 2.0? Was the question on my mind since I left the first Print/online class. After researching (with one of the most well know Web 2.0 tools, Google) I found out a lot of interesting things about this subject. But I don’t think I am able to answer my initial question yet.
One of the main concepts behind Web 2.0 is simplicity. Everything has to be simple. From the interfaces to the tools used. Internet has to be seen as a pleasure, not as a boring thing. “Content is king”, says Keith Robinson, from Asterisk. And this content is not just text, but music, video…
Every contents have to be easy to get, to download, to carry, on your mobile, mp3 player, to be played in interactive TV. This new way of communicating is getting not only our computers, but also our normal way of communicate. Weblogs are an example of it. In a very easy way, anyone can create a blog (as Blogger announce, “Create a blog in 3 easy steps”) and express themselves to the world. And to those who want to read it.
Web 2.0 is presented as an evolution, not a revolution. As I read here and here, it is all about a question of attitude. The 2.0 attitude is “do it now”. Instead of developing very complex and hard-to-get software, the way is to create a basic and common open source product and put it in the market. Google is the main example of it with the “BETA” designations.

As a global community, we are supposed to work together for the same purpose: developing of useful tools. The idea of “global village” can be also applied to the new ways of communication that are being developed, as the communities like Orkut, Syxt and LinkedIn, among others.
To me, Web 2.0 is a platform, a way of communicating to the world, and to see and be seen by it. The power, now, is real. And it is spread in the network as well. Content is the main concept and that means having the right to express yourself, to have the right attitude, to improve things. To move further…to a Web 3.0.

Who knows?

herzlichen willkommen

Welcome to my new project!! :)