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Paul Daigle

List of reliable information sources.

ReadWriteWeb

TechCrunch

SiliconAlleyWatcher

Mashable

StartUpReview

Around the Net in Online Marketing

Umair Haque

Unit Structures

Web Strategy by Jeremiah

Sobleizer

eMarketer

louisgray.com

Best Engaging Communities

Christopher Herot's Weblog

Dion Hinchcliffe's Web 2.0 Blog

Wired Top Stories

RedEyeVC

Furrier.org - Business & Technology Blog

Lawgarithms

OnStartups

Original Signal - The best of Web 2.0

OSWD: Open Source Web Design

Technology & Marketing Law Blog

What is Web 2.O?

The easiest way to understand how the Web2.0 vision is influencing today’s online development and experience is to look at what characterizes the recent wave of online products used by early adopters, tech enthusiast and influencers (Twitter, Tumblr, FriendFeed, Dig, FeedBurner, LinkedIn). You find a diverse collection of applications and destinations that each work to refine or introduce a single online task or activity. These new companies are fully invested in the idea of the Internet as a central platform which operates a wide variety of integrated software products for online publishing, networking and collaboration. This user driven vision gives users the ability to create a personal network of specialty applications that best manage their lives, interests and relationships-- commonly referred to as the Mashup. The growing stream of new products built to serve Web2.0 users gives the networks of active users a scaling degree of complexity.


Those who passionately embrace this vision are often opposed to companies who operate closed platforms, or seek to own critical elements of the Web 2.0 framework. This movement believes that the web should be characterized by openness, the democratization of information, the empowerment of users, and the free access to software product. It opposes large Internet players seeking stronghold positions in the control of data, social relationships or software. But if user data and relationships are free of corporate ownership, how can can companies that facilitate the network survive? No one is sure.



Web2.0 definitions:

Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform. Chief among those rules is this: Build applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them. (This is what I've elsewhere called "harnessing collective intelligence.")- Tim O'Reilly

The idea of "Web 2.0" can also relate to a transition of some websites from isolated information silos to interlinked computing platforms that function like locally-available software in the perception of the user. Web 2.0 also includes a social element where users generate and distribute content, often with freedom to share and re-use. This can result in a rise in the economic value of the web to businesses, as users can perform more activities online.- Wikipedia


Web 2.0 Compact Definition: Trying Again
What Is Web 2.0
Web 2.0- From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia>Definitions of Web 2.0 on the Web

A rising Star of Social Media

That’s right. It’s you.

The most unexpected, important and exciting online development of the last few years is how the web has turned our personal communication and life documentation into inexpensive, compelling, and highly consumable media. Is it me, or is there a bit of a correlation between the reality television of the last 8 years and the personal life publishing and consumption driving a lot of today’s online usage? Are we becoming the creators, producers and promoters of online reality programming for which we also narrate, director and star?

As more and more people place themselves under a self made Internet spotlight, more still have emerged to become dedicated readers and viewers, providing a necessary ally for any type of new media… an audience. While 38.7% of active users are writing blogs, a surprising 72.8% are reading them, with a whopping 67.5% reading the personal blogs of friends and family.

How big is this trend? According to Universal McCann's latest Social Media Tracker there are 475 million active Internet Users worldwide between the ages of 16 and 54. Of those 475 million people, 184 million are blogging. 346 million read some form of blog, while 321 million are reading personal blogs. Personal blogs are the most highly consumed form of blog according to this study. This represents 137 million people who are consuming personal blogs who aren’t blogging themselves.

How this trend will affect the business of media won’t be known for years, though it’s likely to democratize the flow of information, trends, ideas and influence in that more and more of us will be writers, photographers, movie makers, reporters, analysts and opinion leaders in one form or another. Society will be listening to a lot more voices, and that can only be a good thing. Advertisers and the corporate media will likely navigate all this change as gracefully as the recording industry is handling the digital download, or as insightfully as the newspaper industry is handling the fact that news and paper appear to be on the outs. These are interesting times.

I think the ratio between blog creators and blog consumers will level off as new technologies emerge and the sector matures. The blogosphere began as a domain of the extrovert. The fact that the word “blog” still serves as a useful catch-all for all types of web logs, be it to promote business, journalistic pursuits, or as a personal diary, is indeed proof that we are still experiencing the tip of something very large. Of the 300 million people living in the US only 8.7% of us are blogging. Will blogging remain an activity that appeals to certain types of people- perhaps the more self-promotional in our midst? I don’t think so.

Having a blog will more likely become essential to how we document and share life. Consider this; the activities that constitute “blogging” have been with us for generations. What is a personal blog but a collection of stories, recorded self expression, relationships and events as illustrated by our own personal media? Our grandparent’s old trunks filled with letters, pictures, home movies, report cards and family recipes are yesterday’s family blogs in analog. These silos of the past will get pulled into the digital realm someday. Genealogy has hit the web hard over the last few years. When the blogging format meets a Wiki social graph that maps our shared ancestry we will likely see the past documented as quickly and enthusiastically as the present.

The value of the web for creating and cultivating meaningful personal relationships is just half the story. The ability of the web to help us build and maintain meaningful, searchable and fully connected digital memory banks is the other half. Just as today I walk around with every song I’ve ever owned easily found and played with my iPod, tomorrow my daughter will access every important personal moment she’s ever experienced, along with important moments experienced by her friends, family members and ancestors… all on demand.

So getting back to the connection I mentioned between the exhibition and voyeurism of reality TV, and the slight hint of that milieu in the leading edge of today’s online social movement; I believe this is a phase, and a necessary one. A mistake the industry is likely to make is assuming that the needs, trends and activities of today's users, the early adopters and way-early majority, will help us predict the needs and desires of the yet to be engaged true majority. Today’s online social landscape is not yet a mainstream setting. It’s top heavy on tech and youth culture and a little short on delivering relevance and value to people who consider themselves average, everyday hardworking folk. It’s a space where being a geek is a point of pride, and where being edgy, or at least a dude helps get you around. It’s a room with countless corners, built on enthusiastic subcultures, and filled with the truly dynamic. There are also a good number of screamers, wanabe’s and lurkers to keep the authentic smell of openness in the air. It’s addicting, exciting and fun.

But it can also be a bit of a circus; noisy, endless open doors and diversions, with the occasional unpleasant surprise. I occasionally log-off wondering if I have gum under my shoe, or smell of tobacco, cotton candy and popcorn. It’s a space that I enjoy and understand, even when I'm rolling my eyes. But it’s not a place that understands what many older users, parents or young children need from this world.

My parents are convinced that they can successfully ignore the existence of the Internet. Like his grandfather who never learned to read or write, my father is intent on leaving this world never having typed-in a password or read an email. My daughter, on the other hand, has already designed the logo for her future website, savetheworld.org (I don’t have the heart to tell her the domain isn’t available). I’m convinced that the web will play a huge role in both my daughter’s and parent’s futures… even if they resist it. Yet even I broach the subject with hesitation. Where can I bring my parents online where they can enjoy a meaningful social experience? How old will my daughter be before I’m comfortable giving her the keys to the open web? What needs to happen that hasn’t happened for this medium to really reach, touch and serve everybody?

We all have family members and friends who live outside our beloved digital world. What makes the social web so valuable for some and so irrelevant or inappropriate for others? I go back to realty TV. The Internet, as it’s being develop for early adopters and youth, promotes a vibe of open broadcast over closed networks of personal relevance. Web 2.0 is about being open, being found, and being heard. These are not the attributes of intimate personal networking.

We call it social media for a reason. We want our elbows out, and we want them rubbed… especially by people we know, or we have admired, or have little opportunity to connect with offline.

Among the hot apps du jour is Twitter. What is Twitter? Why, it’s your own personal broadcast buddy and handy little lifestream of people you know, or want to know, informing you what they are all doing right now. It’s tres cool. Of course, these are the people who you know that actually use Twitter. That’s about 2 million people worldwide as of last month. What this means is your chances of building a following that is anywhere near reflective of your real life is, well… “hard”. But we face this problem with other apps, and we don’t let it get us down. Twitter, again, is a land where being a geek has great rewards… voila- all my friends!

The unique adoption problem for Twitter is that in order to expand a personal network beyond a list of appealing elbows and fellow geeks you’ll have to somehow convince friends and family members that it’s critical that they start broadcasting when they're hungry, lost their pen, fed the cat, did laundry, or had a bad oyster. What I love about Twitter is it’s ability to document life in a way that is both immediate and far reaching. What I don’t like is Twitter provides little context for all these unique moments flying past. Visiting a friend’s Twitter home is much more rewarding- seeing what they like to tweet about and where they go. Twitter is an important step in helping us realize the value of a documented life.

But part of me wonders if Twitter is more of a social experiment in being hyper-connected than an essential communication tool. What to do with all this new connection and immediacy is really being explored by the people who use Twitter. It’s fascinating. Sleep and food seem to be the top tweet topics, followed by location and work/play reports. It’s 140 characters… so it becomes an art form based in brevity. If you’re a geek you will likely continue to love reporting the play-by-play of personal life, while non-techies will find their small moments too small and their big moments too frenetic… and tweeting will likely pass them by.

Again, Twitter seems like a natural for promoting ourselves so that we can get higher in the reality game-- become known, become more connected, achieve success. I engage in this game myself, and I’m not knocking it. I’m simply stating that these needs are much more narrow than the needs of a Mom who has 3 kids and a full-time career, and would love to network with friends and family, and set up pages for the kids, and plan birthday parties, and manage the family calendar, and publish scrapbooks that are connected to grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends… and do it all online without opening a can of spam. But all that inevitable potential is not quite there yet. It’s there… but you have to really want it. The documented life isn’t an easy feat for someone with little time, especially if that someone isn’t a self proclaimed geek like the rest of us.

My point is this; I think the broadcast element is what separates today’s users from tomorrow’s more mainstream Internet. Perhaps we need a new category called “Personal Networking”. Social Networking is about broadcast, it’s about being found and being heard. Personal Networking is different. It’s about being connected. It’s about having a network that reflects the life you really lead. For many, the documented life will wait until a relevant personal network arrives… because at the end of the day it’s the network that will give online life value. Personal media without the right audience has no value. The numbers prove that people already have an enormous appetite for personal media produced by people they know. And today's technologies help consumers capture life quicker, easier and less costly than ever. We await technologies that provide a simpler means of plugging in and managing our relationships and personal moments so that we can all begin to live a more meaningful, connected and documented life.

Sorting out the pieces of today’s Social Media pie.

What is social media? It’s often hard to really pinpoint because it’s such a moving target. Many defining aspects of social media are evolving. It’s hard to know what this landscape will look like 2, 3 or 5 years from now. How many of the sites that we relied on in 2000 are still around today? Will the social sites and technologies we use today find better rates of success? It’s hard to know. What will social media become? What of today’s social movement will endure?


Instead of talking about social networking in terms of the sites and technologies we use today, it may be more meaningful to define social media by the activities and purposes that drive our involvement. To get our collective heads around the different needs and problems that drive today’s usage, let’s place our social needs into 4 distinct groups: Content, Community, Distribution and Management.



1.) Personal Content:

Defined as: The noise I make. The moments I experience. The content I create.

Enabled by:
Personal Websites
Social, Career & other Community Profiles
Blogs

* Photos
* Video / Audio
* Media Hosting Services

2.) Community:

Defined as: My individual and group connections. The people who make up my world.

Enabled by:
Online Communities
Social Networks (Relationship Managers / Social Graphs)
The Harnessing of Collective Intelligence

* Recommendation Engines
* Social Book-marking
* Reputation Systems
* User Reviews/Opinions
* Social Commerce
* Crowd Sourcing
* Wiki

3.) Data Distribution

Defined as: How I share and receive information. My information pipelines.

Enabled by:
RSS
File Sharing / Peer-to-Peer
Mobile Media

* Podcasts
* Location Based Media
* Location-Based Services

Messaging

* Instant Messaging
* Internet Forums & Message Boards
* Chat Rooms
* Micro Blogging

Search
Lifestreaming
Content Aggregators
Widgets

4.) Relationship & Data Management

Defined as: How I control it all.

Enabled by:
Password, Identity & Authentication Management
OpenID
DataPortability
Timeline, Event & News Management
Relationship Management
Media/Content Management

When you look at these 4 social needs categories and compare them with today's offerings it seems clear that the "management" piece has some growing up to do. As online social management matures it will have a big effect on existing social technologies, new product development and our real social lives.

Many of today’s new social offerings serve very specific social needs. These are more widgets that robust services. Enabling users to build networks of social components is one of the promises of Web 2.0. Will the success of these stand-alone services and the addition of OpenID and Data Portability deliver a more meaningful and reliable experience than a central social networking hub like a MySpace or FaceBook? Or will new central hubs for social relationships and media that better address all 4 needs categories emerge?

How Can We Help Brands Become More Social?

Every week a new article attempts to redefine what social media means for brand advertisers. This communicates, accurately I think, that the advertising and media industries are still working to understand how they can best help their clients capitalize on the new social media opportunity.

Are brands being approached correctly on this subject. Does the term "advertising" even belong in this conversation? I beginning to wonder if discussing ad campaigns in the context of social networking isn't muddying the waters completely. Can a company succeed with a social presence without assembling the assets to function as a social company? The resources and talent needed to succeed socially have less to do with traditional advertising and marketing, and more to do with customer service and public relations.

Wikipedia defines PR as "the practice of managing the flow of information between an organization and its publics." Customer Service is defined as "the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase." These are the brand attributes that make companies social. These activities are grounded in listening to the customer and the market in order to address the needs and concerns of the customer and market. These departments are skilled at deciphering changes in customer perception and market environment, and know the importance of response. They are trained in the art of conversation. Ironically, just as most businesses have given up on idea of Customer Relationship Management (CRM), the ultimate CRM facilitator may well exist in Social Media. CRM, according to Wikipedia, is "a multifaceted process, mediated by a set of information technologies that focuses on creating two-way exchanges with customers so that firms have an intimate knowledge of their needs, wants, and buying patterns. ...CRM is intended to help companies understand, as well as anticipate, the needs of current and potential customers."

Advertising doesn't know how to listen. It only knows how to talk. So talking with advertising people about social communities is like telling an accounting department how you can increase sales. Sure, you can run traditional ad campaigns within social settings, but the real opportunities being advanced are not advertising... but communication opportunities. This misalignment between the goals of marketing decision makers and opportunities being offered is why many companies are moving so slowing, and acting so suspiciously of social media .

Advertising isn't going to go away, and it isn't going to change. Nor should it. Advertising, as we know it, will remain an important way to build brand and drive sales. But developing social strategies and advertising strategies are completely different vocations. I don’t believe marketing or advertising departments are where tomorrow’s corporate social initiative will reside.

In order for companies to succeed socially, they will have to restructure to become social entities. It will happen, but it will take time. Helping companies understand where their social assets lie and how to synthesize these assets to create modern CRM departments maybe the answer. These new departments would strive to manage the ear, face and personality of the business, and help the company engage socially to win. In the real world, when we represent our companies at social events we do so knowing who we are, why we are there, who we are speaking with, and what we'd like to accomplish. We know that our success requires that we engage the room in conversation and that we listen. Welcome to social media.

Web 3.0. What will it be?

What will characterize Web 3.0? It's a fun thing to think about.

I believe Web 3.0 will be characterized by large-scale applications that mashup multiple Web 2.0 attributes with sophisticated personalization to tackle big problems. These products will be mark by their success at attracting, connecting and serving every type of user. Just as Web 2.0 is about diversity, niche markets and seeking like-minds, Web 3.0 applications will tie us back together through the creation of essential services.

The success of Web 3.0 apps will create global markets for human experience, ideas, opinions and perspectives. Web 3.0 will begin to show us how we are similar and how we are different from the rest of the world. The leading Web 3.0 applications will turn Users into molecules, mapping the role we each play in shaping and defining the single organism that we called humanity. Just as Web 2.0 is about exploring and defining who we are, Web 3.0 will be about exploring and defining the human network.


Web 3.0 will uncover and empower the mass perspective, allowing the ideas that are capable of uniting majorities to rise above the clutter.