Blogoposium 2 - Lessons Learned from Web 1.0
“The one thing we have learned from history is that we don’t learn from history.”
Last week, I voiced some of my concerns about Web 2.0 in a post entitled The Great Web and Web 2.0. Essentially, it spoke to the need for us to ask two questions about Web 2.0 investments - determining value propositions and business models (other than, “Buy me!”).
VCs like Fred Wilson (Web 2.0 Reactions), Rick Segal (Web 2.0!=check), and Paul Kedrosky (Blog Renamed: Infectious Greed 2.0) have also articulated some thoughts in relation to Web 2.0 feeling “bubble-ish” but they seem to be the exceptions to the rule.
Today, Kevin Burton takes a stronger stance in his Dot Bomb All Over Again?, where he writes, “A lot of the recent news around Web 2.0 is starting to frighten me. There is just too much money flying around with too much hype and too little value.”
Are we headed towards another bubble burst? I’m not certain that anyone can (consistently) predict the future with something as volatile as the web. What we can do, however, is learn from the past. We can learn from what we now call “Web 1.0″.
In my second blogoposium, I propose that we examine Lessons Learned from Web 1.0. We’ll discuss what so many dot bombs did wrong the first time around, think about the signs they missed, and hopefully come up with some “lessons learned” for all the Web 2.0 companies, investors, and VCs out there.
How to Participate
If you are confused about what a “blogoposium” is, check out the blogoposium category.
This blogoposium will run from Monday, October 17th through Wednesday, October 19th. There are several different ways to get your voice heard in this discussion:
- Tag Your Post - Use the Technorati tag blogoposium2 in your post so that we can find your thoughts easily. You can also post any visuals up on Flickr to the “blogoposium2″ tag (thanks to Dion Hinchcliffe’s suggestion during our first blogoposium).
- Tag Relevant Articles - Using del.icio.us, tag relevant items you find to “blogoposium2″. I will be monitoring the blogoposium2 tag and may highlight some of the more interesting thoughts (I’ve already added a handful of articles)
- Trackback this Post - Use the trackback below.
Or you can simply leave a comment below.
One final thing, I need your help! While we had an awesome turn out for the first blogoposium, I’d like to see something even better this time around - more bloggers with a larger variety of backgrounds. Please publicize the blogoposium in whatever way you see fit, so that when Monday rolls around everyone will be ready to go. Thanks and “see” you at the blogoposium!
October 12, 2005 at 11:56 am
Wow - blogoposium2 is here already? I only just finished catching up on the first one…
Here’s an idea: I’ll start tagging everything blogoposium3 so I can get ahead of the crowd!
(Only kidding, Ken, I wouldn’t want to ruin your future tags)
October 20, 2005 at 12:43 am
here is a thought. . . web 1.0 was all about replicating the application experience on the web. But the companies that really succeeded are those that kept their business model “thin” and their application interface “thin” as well. Simply put, they charge very little money per “transaction” but made it up on replicating many many transactions across many many customers. Ofcourse, this also meant that the application itself focused on one small set of functionality and did it really fast and really well. . . so I say. . look for markets with many many transactions (which improve scale), provide value in a small part of the value chain and do it 10x better than anyone else. ..