Being ‘nearly’ 2.0
Let’s play a game. I’ll talk about a product currently on the Internet marketplace, and you have to decide whether it’s Web 2.0 or not.
The user-base numbers in the millions, with many concurrent users forming part of a large community. However, this community’s segmented — partially enforced by the community structure, partly self-organising. Community features include belonging to a particular group of users and having friends lists, chatting directly and in groups, and participating in activities together. There’s emergent behaviour — community members doing things that the organisers never envisaged, and sometimes don’t approve of!
There are other similar products out, and while this particular one has made some superior design and marketing products, its main lock-in is data. Customers invest a lot of time in their use of the product, and switching to a different product means abandoning this time and data; they also lose their community attachment, which can be a strong draw.
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