[UPDATE:] We have taken the Web 2.0 Framework and applied it to the enterprise in our Implementing Enterprise 2.0 report – You can download Chapter 2 on Web 2.0 and the Enterprise here.
Alongside our corporate strategy consulting and research work in the media and technology space, Future Exploration Network has created a Web 2.0 Framework to share openly. Click here or on any of the images below to download the Framework as a pdf (713KB).
The intention of the Web 2.0 Framework is to provide a clear, concise view of the nature of Web 2.0, particularly for senior executives or other non-technical people who are trying to grasp the scope of Web 2.0, and the implications and opportunities for their organizations.
There are three key parts to the Web 2.0 Framework, as shown below:
Web 2.0 Framework
* Web 2.0 is founded on seven key Characteristics: Participation, Standards, Decentralization, Openness, Modularity, User Control, and Identity.
* Web 2.0 is expressed in two key Domains: the Open web, and the Enterprise.
* The heart of Web 2.0 is how it converts Inputs (User Generated Content, Opinions, Applications), through a series of Mechanisms (Technologies, Recombination, Collaborative Filtering, Structures, Syndication) to Emergent Outcomes that are of value to the entire community.
Web 2.0 Definitions
* We define the Web 2.0 Characteristics, Domains, and Technologies referred to in the Framework.
* Ten definitions for Web 2.0 are provided, including the one I use to pull together the ideas in the Framework: “Distributed technologies built to integrate, that collectively transform mass participation into valuable emergent outcomes.”
Web 2.0 Landscape
* Sixty two prominent Web 2.0 companies and applications are mapped out across two major dimensions: Content Sharing to Recommendations/ Filtering; and Web Application to Social Network. The four spaces that emerge at the junctions of these dimensions are Widget/ component; Rating/ tagging; Aggregation/ Recombination; and Collaborative filtering. Collectively these cover the primary landscape of Web 2.0.
As with all our frameworks, the Web 2.0 Framework is released on a Creative Commons license, which allows anyone to use it and build on it as they please, as long as there is attribution with a link to this blog post and/ or Future Exploration Network. The framework is intended to be a stimulus to conversation and further thinking, so if you disagree on any aspect, or think you can improve on it, please take what is useful, leave the rest, and create something better.
In the Framework document we also mention our forthcoming Future of Media Summit 2007, which will be held simultaneously in Sydney and San Francisco this July 18/17. In the same spirit as this Web 2.0 Framework, we will be releasing substantial research, framework, and other content on the Future of Media in the lead-up to our event, continuing the tradition from the Future of Media Strategic Framework and Future of Media Report 2006 that we released last year. Hope this is all useful!
Keynote speech on influence networks at Evolve
By Ross DawsonKimberly Palmer of Networx has put together what looks like a fantastic conference on 14 June in Melbourne, titled Evolve. Its highly diverse content is refreshing after the usual run-of-the-mill marketing events. I’ll be doing a keynote titled: We, Evolved: networks of influence:
In my keynote I will start by going through some of the underlying network science, which surprisingly few marketers and online people are familiar with, considering how useful this is. I will then drill down into the critical distinction between the crude “identify the influencers and influence them” approach to word of mouth marketing, and the value of uncovering the structure of influence networks, the better to craft effective influence strategies. I’ll discuss both consumer marketing and B2B marketing, drawing for example on my research into technology purchase influence networks. I’ll then cover the specific dynamics of online influence, including blogs and recommendation systems such as Digg and Techmeme, before looking at some case studies and concluding action steps for the audience. I will post on this blog again soon on some of the detail of what I’ll cover, including my commentary on the latest research coming out on influence networks.
The coming segmentation of venture capital as an asset class
By Ross DawsonThere are countless guides to venture capital for budding entrepreneurs on the web. Marc Andreesen, the founder of the seminal VC success story Netscape and the recently launched Ning (an extremely interesting social networking platform), among many other ventures, has provided his own guide in a three part series:
Part 1: VC basics and what they look for
Part 2: Going deeper, including comparing VC firms
Part 3: Long-term perspectives, including why VCs continue to be successful today
The most interesting by far is Part 3, looking at long-term cyclicality in the industry, and how venture capital has become accepted as an asset class for professional investors. Over the last couple of decades I’ve spent in and around the capital markets, I’ve seen a number of “new” asset classes struggle for acceptance among institutional investors. Portfolio theory shows that if the investment performance of different asset classes are not fully correlated, you can get better returns for a given risk by including additional asset classes. As such, investors actively want to bring in new asset classes into their portfolios, but there are all sorts of hurdles to cross. High-yield debt, emerging markets debt, venture capital, hedge funds, and other investment vehicles have all gone through a process of being examined by trustees and committees, recommendations provided by asset consultants, eventual approval for small investments by innovative investors, and then larger allocations across most institutional investors. In the US, university endowments have substantially outperformed mutual funds and other institutional investors over the last decade or so, partly through being ahead of the pack in taking on new asset classes such as venture capital.
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Web 2.0 in Australia: The birth of Silicon Harbour?
By Ross DawsonA few initial reflections on the Web 2.0 in Australia event held yesterday… Overall it was a great success, with 100 over invited guests filling the KPMG conference facility, and all requests for invitations having been turned away over the last couple of weeks since we reached capacity. Everything ran smoothly on the day, and some great insights emerged.
For many attendees the highlight was the showcase of five leading Australian Web 2.0 companies (full details here), which amply demonstrated the calibre of local companies and talent, as well as BEA’s demonstration of their new enterprise 2.0 suite. This is just the tip of the iceberg of the Top 60 Web 2.0 applications in Australia we’ve identified (I will be posting shortly about some of the applications I missed in my first go at the list).
We jammed a stack of rich content into the event’s 2½ hours, and while the primary theme of attendee feedback was that they wanted a longer event, I think we did justice to the topic, with some great panel discussions in addition to the showcases. Video coverage of the event done by our event partners Viocorp and One Minute World will be released shortly and will be posted on this blog and elsewhere. In the meantime, a few quick thoughts on what was covered:
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Job ad: Exceptional events manager (technology/ future) – Part-time Sydney
By Ross DawsonPartly as we’ve decided to grow the events part of our business, we’re looking for someone really exceptional who can help to make that happen. In addition to the Future of Media Summit coming up in Sydney and San Francisco, we’re planning a number of events related to Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 for later this year. Clearly the right person for the role will have a very good understanding of current technologies, as well as be familiar with the industry landscape. For the meantime we are experimenting with growing the business just with part-time roles, partly as we find there is great supply/ demand characteristics: lots of excellent people want part-time roles for various reasons, and they don’t find many opportunities.
Please do pass on word on this if there’s anyone you know who may be interested. Details below.
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Web 2.0 in Australia drinks: 6 June Sydney
By Ross DawsonThe Web 2.0 in Australia event is way overbooked. We’ve been turning away all requests for invitations for some time, including from senior executives from organizations such as Commonwealth Bank, Telstra, and the Federal Department of Finance, and from a whole host of very cool entrepreneurs who we would have just loved to have along. However our event space is limited to a 100-odd, so unfortunately it’s not possible this time.
We will, however, produce a stack of excellent video content from the event for free access, including the key presentations and panels, produced by the kind folks over at Metrix Digital, and one-minute interviews with most of the speakers and showcase presenters by One Minute World, a very interesting company focusing on one-minute video content for streaming and mobile devices. I’ll let you know on this blog as soon as the Web 2.0 video content is up.
In addition, the fantastic response to the event means that we will definitely be running some open events later this year. Probably a Web 2.0 showcase, an Enterprise 2.0 workshop, and perhaps a bigger event on where the web is going. I will ask here later what people are most interested in.
Anyway… because we’ve had to turn away so many people for the main event, and also to take advantage of Richard MacManus being in the country, we’ll have a Web 2.0 drinks on the evening of 6 June. Anyone’s welcome to turn up – there’ll be a cash bar.
Where: Casa Asturiana, 77 Liverpool Street, Sydney
When: 6 June, from 8pm
Who: Anyone interested in Web 2.0, especially those making it happen.
Pass on word if you want. Hope to see you there!
A week of hot news on the web: Trade sales mark the boom
By Ross DawsonI am behind on my blogging, so I thought I’d make some very brief comments about a host of extremely interesting announcements that have come out this week.
Google acquires Feedburner.
Feedburner has been prominent in enabling the world of RSS. This acquisition, estimated to be worth $100 million, makes eminent sense for Google in being able to create more value for both publishers and advertisers. Feedburner’s analytics are a key part of that. This is a powerful combination.
Top references/ analysis:
Feedburner CEO comments
Reuters story
Read more →
Launching the Web 2.0 Framework
By Ross Dawson[UPDATE:] We have taken the Web 2.0 Framework and applied it to the enterprise in our Implementing Enterprise 2.0 report – You can download Chapter 2 on Web 2.0 and the Enterprise here.
Alongside our corporate strategy consulting and research work in the media and technology space, Future Exploration Network has created a Web 2.0 Framework to share openly. Click here or on any of the images below to download the Framework as a pdf (713KB).
The intention of the Web 2.0 Framework is to provide a clear, concise view of the nature of Web 2.0, particularly for senior executives or other non-technical people who are trying to grasp the scope of Web 2.0, and the implications and opportunities for their organizations.
There are three key parts to the Web 2.0 Framework, as shown below:
Web 2.0 Framework
* Web 2.0 is founded on seven key Characteristics: Participation, Standards, Decentralization, Openness, Modularity, User Control, and Identity.
* Web 2.0 is expressed in two key Domains: the Open web, and the Enterprise.
* The heart of Web 2.0 is how it converts Inputs (User Generated Content, Opinions, Applications), through a series of Mechanisms (Technologies, Recombination, Collaborative Filtering, Structures, Syndication) to Emergent Outcomes that are of value to the entire community.
Web 2.0 Definitions
* We define the Web 2.0 Characteristics, Domains, and Technologies referred to in the Framework.
* Ten definitions for Web 2.0 are provided, including the one I use to pull together the ideas in the Framework: “Distributed technologies built to integrate, that collectively transform mass participation into valuable emergent outcomes.”
Web 2.0 Landscape
* Sixty two prominent Web 2.0 companies and applications are mapped out across two major dimensions: Content Sharing to Recommendations/ Filtering; and Web Application to Social Network. The four spaces that emerge at the junctions of these dimensions are Widget/ component; Rating/ tagging; Aggregation/ Recombination; and Collaborative filtering. Collectively these cover the primary landscape of Web 2.0.
As with all our frameworks, the Web 2.0 Framework is released on a Creative Commons license, which allows anyone to use it and build on it as they please, as long as there is attribution with a link to this blog post and/ or Future Exploration Network. The framework is intended to be a stimulus to conversation and further thinking, so if you disagree on any aspect, or think you can improve on it, please take what is useful, leave the rest, and create something better.
In the Framework document we also mention our forthcoming Future of Media Summit 2007, which will be held simultaneously in Sydney and San Francisco this July 18/17. In the same spirit as this Web 2.0 Framework, we will be releasing substantial research, framework, and other content on the Future of Media in the lead-up to our event, continuing the tradition from the Future of Media Strategic Framework and Future of Media Report 2006 that we released last year. Hope this is all useful!
Particls switches on the power of RSS
By Ross DawsonIn the last few days I’ve made a couple of references to Particls, first in writing about our Web 2.0 in Australia event next week, where we had invited Particls to present as one of the most interesting applications on the scene, and an hour ago in my Top 60 Web 2.0 Applications in Australia list posted on Read/Write Web. As of earlier today, Particls has moved to public beta, and deservedly attracted substantial attention. The best reviews out so far are from Read/Write Web, Techcrunch, Mashable!, and StartupSquad – best to go there for a full rundown on Particls.
I think Particls is important for two reasons. First, it provides a completely friendly interface to RSS with far superior functionality to your usual feed aggregators. RSS is one of the most important foundations to Web 2.0 and the promise of the Internet, yet a minority of people really understand what it is, and use it well. Particls is the first of what I hope are a whole generation of tools that embed RSS in ways that make it invisible and provide access to the information people want.
Second, it is a solid and useable implementation of information filtering that shows how this landscape may unfold moving forward. Active filtering is an issue I’ve been strongly interested in for the last decade. For example, back in 2001 a company called Worldstreet was using XML-based document tagging to improve the flow of research documents from investment banks to funds managers, allowing high priority and relevant information to cut through to the users from the myriad of information they were receiving. The company was bought by Thomson Financial and incorporated into their Thomson Connect product, with its best features ultimately disappearing. Now that we are all experiencing the same degree of information overload as the funds managers of yesteryear, the world is now ready for sophisticated multi-tier filtering of information.
Having had the Particls toolbar installed for just a day now, I can confirm that the content streaming through is highly relevant to me, and I have better access to the information that’s relevant to me. Those that can use these kinds of tools well will be highly advantaged in our intensely knowledge-based economy moving forward.
Click on the image here to download Particls, including a feed to this blog (which you can delete if you wish):
Prepaid mobile airtime becomes currency in Africa – what happened to e-cash?
By Ross DawsonOm Malik has a very interesting article on how pre-paid mobile minutes are effectively becoming a currency across Africa. I visited South Africa three times late last year while helping a large African media conglomerate to develop its long-term strategy. At the time I wrote about how mobiles are allowing Africa to leapfrog the fixed internet, and also about the potential and challenges of South Africa.
The majority of services in Africa are shifting to mobile phone interfaces, as close to a majority of people now have mobile phones – these are no longer luxuries for most people – while there are few other interfaces available for commerce. Even landline phones are often not available, let alone fixed internet or other interactive devices. As a result, mobile banking and a vast array of mobile services are taking off fast.
One of the greatest values of anything prepaid is that it can be exchanged. When local currencies have problems with inflation, availability of currency, institutional trust and so on, alternatives swiftly come to the fore. I certainly find it interesting that talk of e-cash, all the rage in the late 1990s, has now largely disappeared. One of the major uncertainties in the future is whether we ever finally get rid of the bits of paper and metal in our wallets that we exchange for goods and services. This is a major inefficiency in our lives. It would be so much easier to swipe or approve something. While there are potential privacy issues, it is possible to create completely untraceable e-cash. The primary reason e-cash went no further was that there were major vested interests stamping on the various alternative standards being proposed. It’s possible that something will emerge that people start using of their own accord, just as is happening with mobile airtime in Africa. Yet there are better ways of doing it. I think that within a decade e-cash will be firmly back on the agenda.
The latest on Web 2.0 in Australia: Showcasing the best
By Ross Dawson[POST-EVENT:] Also see post-event comments and release of Web 2.0 Framework.
The Web 2.0 in Australia event on 6 June is turning out pretty much exactly as designed. It will be a compact, senior executive, invitation-only event covering topics including frameworks for thinking about Web 2.0, why progress has been slow in Australia, current leading examples of Web 2.0 in Australia, and implications and opportunities for corporates, start-ups and marketing.
Sponsors and partners include BEA Systems, KPMG, Australian Venture Capital Assocation, Australian Information Industry Association, Department of State and Regional Development, Australian Interactive Media Industry Assocation, Smart Internet Technology CRC, and Innovation Bay. The latest information on the event is here.
The final speaker line-up is absolutely fantastic, including:
* Richard MacManus, Editor, Read/ Write Web
* Allan Aaron, General Partner, Technology Venture Partners
* David Backley, Chief Technology Officer, Westpac
* Brad Howarth, Journalist and Director, LaGrange Communications
* Randal Leeb-du Toit, CEO, Yoick
* Adrian McDermott, Vice President of Engineering, BEA Systems
* Chris Smith, General Manager, Sensis Interactive
I’ll also present our Web 2.0 framework (which will be released next week) and chair the event. Richard and Adrian are flying in from New Zealand and Silicon Valley respectively. Richard’s been keen to get over to Australia to get a better feel for the local Web 2.0 community. The event is partly intended to help Richard – and of course others! – to do this. We have a fantastic audience of some of the most senior executives from the corporate and technology sector in Australia coming along on the day.
The main reason for this post is to announce the companies we’re showcasing as “five leading examples of Web 2.0 in Australia” at the event. These have been selected purely on merit. We did a good scour of what’s out there in this space to make the selection. The results of our research, giving a quick rundown on the top 50 or so Web 2.0 companies in Australia, will be released in the next few days, appearing first on Richard’s Read/Write Web, which is one of the top few technology blogs in the world. I’ll post it on this blog shortly afterwards.
In the meantime, the leading five companies that are being showcased at the event are (in alphabetical order):
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