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Drinking from the Firehose: Observations
 The
last two days at the Web 2.0 Expo were intense. Good intense. I now
know what all the talk hype around the O'Reilly's Web 2.0 events is
about.
As I mentioned in my first post
about the event on Monday, I was blown away by the number of people
here. It's been a long time since I've been at a large expo with
thousands of people. I have to say, size does matter and I prefer
small. There is something to be said about mingling with a more
intimate crowd, especially from a networking perspective.
Large
isn't all bad though. With scale comes the ability to do things in
grand fashion, and that includes attracting big name speakers. Getting
up close and personal (at least via the video screen) with the likes of
Eric Schmidt, Jeff Bezos, John Battelle, and Mena Trott is an
educational and exhilarating experience.
One thing I must note
about this event was the frustration of knowing that 50% of the time, I
was missing seven other sessions (there were eight tracks total). All
in all, my choices turned out to be pretty solid but that didn't help
the lingering feeling that I was missing something bigger and better at
one of the other sessions.
The size of the event/number of tracks aside, I truly enjoyed myself during my two  action-packed
days at Web 2.0. There was something palpable in the air, similar to
the early internet days. Some of that can be attributed to recent
acquisitions of Web 2.0 darlings, YouTube and MySpace, for ridiculous
amounts of money.
One could sense that the acquisitions of these
two companies have everyone in the Web 2.0/social networking space
thinking "what if", even though few people are willing to own up to
having such thoughts. It is this same dream that motivates me to work
that much harder to help get our company over the hump.
Some other key takeaways from the event:
- Good Web 2.0 companies possess the following attributes:
- Strong leadership teams (first five are most crucial)
- Well-defined "secret sauce" that helps solve a specific problem
- Creating something "cool" isn't enough
- A great customer base or the ability to virally grow a great customer base
- The
Web 2.0/social networking space is becoming highly competitive from a
private equity perspective -- this is good news for forward thinking
companies with solid business plans
- When building out
your product/website, customer co-creation is essential to innovation
and keeping your customers happy and engaged
- According
to Tim O'Reilly, Eric Scmidt and a number of other industry luminaries,
we are at the very beginning of the Web 2.0/social networking
explosion, especially as businesses begin to embrace these trends
- If
you are starting a company in the new Web 2.0 environment, you need to
decide right up front if you are built to sell or built to last --
these decisions will drive the execution of your business plan
- The
cost of Web 2.0 labor has become more expensive due to companies like
Google and Yahoo! driving up the price -- this is particularly evident
when it comes to good technologists and viral marketers
- Gina Bianchini, CEO and co-founder of Ning, insightfully remarked that "social
networks are like a party. Customers want lots of things to do, lots of
people to meet. It's important for people to have new and interesting
things to do all the time."
In summary, a major
trend is beginning to emerge in the marketplace where web 2.0 and
social networking companies are growing at a white hot pace. Unlike the
internet bubble of the late 90's however, experts predict that this
wave of companies (and private equity firms) are "built to last" based
on their smarter, more business-centric approaches.
Of course
there will be a large number of companies that are destined to fail in
this new era and thousands more that will be subsumed by the big three
(Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft.) Those businesses that follow the right
path and leverage the "wisdom of crowds" (along with cheap SaaS
applications and low sales/marketing costs low) will succeed beyond our
wildest dreams. As someone that lived through the carnage of Web 1.0 in
the late 90's, I'm thrilled about the prospect that Web 2.0, and social
networking for businesses holds in store.
Tue, Apr 17 2007
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