Of course, I am excited by all the possibilities of the Web 2.0 - like any true techie at heart should be. The problem remaining with all these nice ideas and technologies is just ... it is so very hard to describe to (potential) clients, what it's all about. Web 2.0 certainly is a nice buzzword (version 2.0 must be better than 1.0, or?) and some clients - the type who always wants to be at the cutting edge - are eager to discuss business opportunities. Still, most others are either asking "And what exactly is the Web 2.0?" or - the harder kind - "So what?" meaning, of course: "What is in for my business?"
Michael Sampson tries to give an answer in his weblog: Where's the Value in Web 2.0? While it may not be the perfect elevator pitch, it at least tries to do a medium length summary of the most important advantages. Excerpt:
What's the Problem Web 2.0 Seeks to Resolve?
I think that Web 2.0 can resolve five interlinked business problems: onsite application maintenance, business user frustrations, cross-organizational system nightmares, desktop upgrade issues, and simpler approaches to collaboration. [... more details in the post]
I liked the article. Many of the sentences ring true. Web 2.0 makes software development cycles shorter, software deployment and maintenance easier. On the other hand: it is a very "technical" approach and at least four of the five points mentioned deal with the challenge of getting working software on the users desk. This is certainly an important issue. But thats not the essence of Web 2.0. I found the post through a link over at vowe and the first comment there was a rather laconic "That sounds like five things Web 1.0 has been already doing for us for quite some time". This is a bit unfair but the Web 2.0 approach - at least to software distribution - is one that is as old as the multiuser mainframe.
I miss some concepts that will be much more important in the long run, IMHO, like the emergence of new types of applications by recombining existing ones (the mesh up idea) and the additional opportunities available to developers without huge resources (in funds and man power).
But maybe these advantages are too abstract and even less likely to be usable for an elevator pitch.
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