Internet at the crossing, or when the gold rush ends
Many interesting events continue to occur on the Internet. Well, at least what is worth the recorded drop in investment activity in the Web 2.0 market. Or another Microsoft spurt in the field of SaaS. Other no less significant shifts and publications appeared. Therefore, I wanted to draw a general picture of the Internet at the present stage of its development.
“I will not tell you for all of Odessa, all of Odessa is very great,” Leonid Utyosov once sang. And I will not say for the whole Internet. Not even talking about the whole Web 2.0. The latter already has more than 2 thousand sites, which are attributed here (in the RuNet - about 3 hundred). The conversation will focus mainly on social networks - the most famous component of Web 2.0. Well, and a little more about SaaS - the second of its main part.
But even with reference to this area, the picture is not quite complete, and not a picture of it yet, but only sketches for it.
However, I decided to show my sketches nevertheless, without subjecting to substantial editing. I tried to organize them only a little, divide them into chunks, group them into sections and logically link everything. In some places it turned out better, in others worse. I put all this in my iTech Bridge –blog, providing the necessary links. I would like to acquaint you only with key excerpts from each such sketch (there are more than forty sketches, 22 have been published so far, in two portions - excerpts from those published and I quote) ...
First portion
Stop looking back
Sketch 1. As the classics that have already been almost forgotten taught us, periodic crises are characteristic of capitalism. And now we are witnessing how the collapse of the American real estate market and the subsequent collapse of some leading financial institutions inexorably lead to another economic crisis. And not only in America. In the era of globalization, world markets, and previously closely related to each other, now generally constitute a single organism. Of course, the crisis will have a negative impact on the Internet. Although, just today the “dotcom” is not at all to blame. But, nevertheless, he will not be spared. And you need to be prepared for the coming hard times.
')
Sketch 2. I did not have time to write the last sentence, as the Dow Jones Venture Source report appeared and began to be widely discussed, which shows that in 2007 the first signs of a slowdown in investment activity in the Web 2.0 market appeared. Despite the high absolute figures, investment growth in the past year was the lowest in the last seven years. And what is most interesting, most of them fell on very few players in this market, among which Facebook was clearly distinguished (22% of the total). Growth and advertising revenue slowed down a bit. What is it: an accident or a trend?
Sketch 3. The current situation in the economy, in general, and in the Internet economy, in particular, is now widely discussed everywhere. Skeptics say, Web 2.0 has passed its peak, and the long-awaited explosion of the next dot-com bubble is not far off. And, as proof, they sometimes cite an almost mystical, from their point of view, coincidence. In 2001, on the eve of the first explosion, American web company America Online (AOL) was bought by media giant Time Warner for $ 163 billion, which, by the way , led the buyer to the largest for those times corporate losses in the amount of $ 99 billion. Now AOL itself is buying the social website Bebo for $ 850 million.
Sketch 4. However, in any case, every cloud has a silver lining. You can finally stop and look around. Recall that Web 2.0 began in the period of the previous economic crisis, caused just by the financial collapse of the first generation of dotcoms. And who knows, or maybe precisely, soon on the wreckage of the next economic crisis, a completely different web, so long awaited by many, will suddenly appear for everyone, and already somewhere next O'Reilly is preparing him a beautiful name. And maybe it will, in fact, be Web 3.0.
Services that everyone has forgotten
Sketch 5. I don’t know how the future Internet will be called. However, I know well that the debate about the essence of everything seems to be a well-known Web 2.0.
Sketch 6. If today, in speaking of Web 2.0, everybody remembers the user content, then we almost stopped talking about ratings of this content. As they stopped talking about jointly accumulated links (the so-called social bookmarks such as del.icio.us and social news resources like digg). All these, one of the first social services that appeared, turned out to be all abandoned. Particularly bad in terms of development is the situation with resources like del.icio.us, which, by the way, gave reason to one American blogger to call the corresponding direction “the red stepson of the social Internet.”
Formula for capitalization ... in virtual currency
Sketch 7. I read quite recently, even before the publication of the last not very pleasant data on the Internet economics, that a large influx of not only new billionaires, but also simple millionaires, should not be expected from the social Internet market in the foreseeable future. This is understandable: the increase in the size of the advertising cake, almost the only source of existence for web startups, is much slower than the increase in the army of these startups willing to taste it. And even if their founders do not make up as good business plans as they can, the pie will no longer be made from this.
Sketch 8. I even subtracted that there is a simple formula for determining the “capitalization” of a social resource, which, based on a potential advertiser, is recommended to be used in drawing up a “good business plan”. It turns out that the capitalization of a resource can be determined by the number of users “caught in the network” of this resource. Like, the cost of one visitor of a social network ranges from $ 10 to $ 100 (in the Russian market - from $ 1 to $ 10). But maybe it’s time to speak not about “conditional”, but about “virtual units”? Moreover, the economic crisis is still brewing, and with real currency (even in the conventional dimension) it will be tough.
Sketch 9. And not only the limited size of the “advertising pie” and the expected weight loss of the wallets of advertisers and investors are facing now many of the problems of new web startups. The gold rush times are over, when the launch of the next project required financial expenses only for its development. And these costs, in relation to Web 2.0, rarely went beyond a few tens of thousands of dollars. Users went to the shoals of new items, followed by advertisers, investors and buyers, who took upon themselves all the subsequent costs associated with the operation of the resource.
Sketch 10. However, we will try to give the desired for the real and believe in the reality of the linear conversion of users into voiced currency. Honestly, this will not be easier. After all, not only the advertising cake has a limited size. The population of the land, alas, is all the more limited in quantity. And almost everyone who wants to virtually communicate has already been “captured” by the pioneers of the “social world”. As for the hopes for a serious migration of users from old resources to new ones, then, according to experts, one can hardly expect this.
Sketch 11 . Indeed, by and large, because instead of MySpace, you tell StarSpace or MoonSpace, or whatever Space there is, the essence of the resource does not change (as in the parable about halva, which doesn’t become sweeter from repeating this word). Your complex social resource will become “sweeter” for users only if you put something fundamentally new into it. But just this new on the horizon and not yet seen. The situation is a bit like the one that, in the era of general shortage, a well-known satirist, drawing a paradise for goods, described it like this: “You go into a shoe store, and you are offered any shoes. You want a white bottom with a black top, you want a black bottom with a white top. " So in complex social networks: you want blogs with forums, and you want forums with blogs. The set of services is the same.
Portion Two
Once again about the social platform revolution
Sketch 12 . Many argue that the future is for more specialized, and sometimes quite closed virtual communities. I think so. However, if the participants of such communities are quite satisfied with the services provided by MySpace, FaceBook, Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki and similar social resources, then who prevents these participants from organizing themselves on the basis of the same resources?
Sketches 13, 14. These sketches contain some additional considerations on the subject of social platforms.
Competition and standardization - two banks on the same river
Sketch 15. The other day in the press skipped two messages. The first is that a couple of cross-applications have appeared for competing MySpace and FaceBook. These applications allow users of one resource to communicate with users of another, and vice versa. The second message says that Yahoo joins Open Social. Thus, of the major players on the social Internet field, this standard was, perhaps, only the main players of Facebook and MySpace. However, no one doubts that the new billionaires will not go anywhere, and the future accession is only a matter of time (for MySpace, in any case).
Sketch 16. On the same days, information appeared that the participants of the I-community 2008 conference came to the general conclusion that there is nothing uniting social resources in RuNet in the foreseeable future. And the deputy of the State Duma, who is also the Internet producer Konstantin Rykov, in general, stated (albeit on another occasion) “We don’t need to try on either the Chinese or the American way. We have our own, Russian Internet, that is, Runet ... We will have our own way. " So here again, "your way." Where?
Sketch 17. One can see the same questions that are of concern to anyone who, one way or another, works on the Internet. Here, for example, I did not have time to finish the previous sketch, as some of my LJ-friend put a note, the essence of which comes down to the following (I quote the author): “In the bourgeois, as soon as a useful service appears, it is immediately bolted with API and third-party development ... Why do we practically lack an interface culture for third-party developers? ” My commentary answer to this almost rhetorical question is placed in the full draft of the outline.
Cult of amateurs or who is the owner of the network?
Sketch 18. "Any cook can manage the state." Something in this spirit was promised by one famous revolutionary. As you know, the experiment with the cooks in power refused unsuccessful. Andreu Keen, author of the cult of amateurs: How the Internet is Killing Our Culture (Cult of the Amateurs) last year, is convinced that Web 2.0 with its concept of “user generated content” is also waiting for this.
Sketch 19. The author of the note “What happens when you do not own your startup” approaches the question of the cult of amateurs from the commercial side and once again draws our attention to a certain contradiction. Users are well “pecked” on a social resource that gives them maximum freedom of action. Advertisers prefer to stir ads in those resources where they clearly understand who is the boss (i.e. on the web). And they want to see as such professionals, and not amateurs. In turn, investors are unwilling to invest in resources whose owners are not, in fact, such. In reality, these resources are owned by their “public”. "Riots on ships" (digg, LJ), periodically stunning social Internet, more proof of this.
Sketch 20. The social platform revolution uncovered another interesting aspect of the cult of amateur dilemma. As more and more advanced platforms emerged, the requirements for the professionalism of developers of social resources began to decline steadily. Tools for the "baking" of such resources is becoming increasingly simple and accessible. And this, moreover, that the tools are not distinguished by a great variety, as, by the way, the recipe of the services laid in them. Today in Ning, for example, anyone not even familiar with the basics of programming can, literally, build their home-made product in an hour. Does this mean that in the era of social platforms, professional web builders will be left without work? Yes, that means, unless they start creating truly original resources.
For the "music" is better to pay
Sketch 21. And again, back to the abject metal. Something is hardly visible not only of revolutionary ideas in terms of the functionality of social resources, but also of original business models that orient other sources to monetize them. At best, the authors timidly say that, in addition to advertising, they will someday receive income for additional services. What are these services and how much will they give, about this, usually, is modestly silent.
Sketch 22. You have to pay for the content! Increasingly, you can hear such cries from “offended investors” who publish their information in social networks. Indeed, it is somehow strange that content carriers, whose labor forms the basis of the prosperity of many resources, themselves receive nothing for this labor. Unless, of course, do not consider moral satisfaction and "thank you" from some readers. But from "thank you", because, according to cynics, "you can not sew a fur coat." Do not work yet, as it should, motivational mechanisms in social networks. After all, one cannot consider the same, for example, karma. So after all, to pay or not to pay ?. And if you still pay, then who will do it? The participants of the discussion “Will the Web 2.0 ever be profitable,” held in Las Vegas in early March, argued about this?
I remind you that the full text of these sketches (with all the necessary links) can be found in iTech Bridge:
Portion 1 | Portion 2 | Portion 3 * | Portion 4 * | Conclusion *
- * Portia appeared after the publication of this note.
“I will not tell you for all of Odessa, all of Odessa is very great,” Leonid Utyosov once sang. And I will not say for the whole Internet. Not even talking about the whole Web 2.0. The latter already has more than 2 thousand sites, which are attributed here (in the RuNet - about 3 hundred). The conversation will focus mainly on social networks - the most famous component of Web 2.0. Well, and a little more about SaaS - the second of its main part.
But even with reference to this area, the picture is not quite complete, and not a picture of it yet, but only sketches for it.
However, I decided to show my sketches nevertheless, without subjecting to substantial editing. I tried to organize them only a little, divide them into chunks, group them into sections and logically link everything. In some places it turned out better, in others worse. I put all this in my iTech Bridge –blog, providing the necessary links. I would like to acquaint you only with key excerpts from each such sketch (there are more than forty sketches, 22 have been published so far, in two portions - excerpts from those published and I quote) ...
First portion
Stop looking back
Sketch 1. As the classics that have already been almost forgotten taught us, periodic crises are characteristic of capitalism. And now we are witnessing how the collapse of the American real estate market and the subsequent collapse of some leading financial institutions inexorably lead to another economic crisis. And not only in America. In the era of globalization, world markets, and previously closely related to each other, now generally constitute a single organism. Of course, the crisis will have a negative impact on the Internet. Although, just today the “dotcom” is not at all to blame. But, nevertheless, he will not be spared. And you need to be prepared for the coming hard times.
')
Sketch 2. I did not have time to write the last sentence, as the Dow Jones Venture Source report appeared and began to be widely discussed, which shows that in 2007 the first signs of a slowdown in investment activity in the Web 2.0 market appeared. Despite the high absolute figures, investment growth in the past year was the lowest in the last seven years. And what is most interesting, most of them fell on very few players in this market, among which Facebook was clearly distinguished (22% of the total). Growth and advertising revenue slowed down a bit. What is it: an accident or a trend?
Sketch 3. The current situation in the economy, in general, and in the Internet economy, in particular, is now widely discussed everywhere. Skeptics say, Web 2.0 has passed its peak, and the long-awaited explosion of the next dot-com bubble is not far off. And, as proof, they sometimes cite an almost mystical, from their point of view, coincidence. In 2001, on the eve of the first explosion, American web company America Online (AOL) was bought by media giant Time Warner for $ 163 billion, which, by the way , led the buyer to the largest for those times corporate losses in the amount of $ 99 billion. Now AOL itself is buying the social website Bebo for $ 850 million.
Sketch 4. However, in any case, every cloud has a silver lining. You can finally stop and look around. Recall that Web 2.0 began in the period of the previous economic crisis, caused just by the financial collapse of the first generation of dotcoms. And who knows, or maybe precisely, soon on the wreckage of the next economic crisis, a completely different web, so long awaited by many, will suddenly appear for everyone, and already somewhere next O'Reilly is preparing him a beautiful name. And maybe it will, in fact, be Web 3.0.
Services that everyone has forgotten
Sketch 5. I don’t know how the future Internet will be called. However, I know well that the debate about the essence of everything seems to be a well-known Web 2.0.
Sketch 6. If today, in speaking of Web 2.0, everybody remembers the user content, then we almost stopped talking about ratings of this content. As they stopped talking about jointly accumulated links (the so-called social bookmarks such as del.icio.us and social news resources like digg). All these, one of the first social services that appeared, turned out to be all abandoned. Particularly bad in terms of development is the situation with resources like del.icio.us, which, by the way, gave reason to one American blogger to call the corresponding direction “the red stepson of the social Internet.”
Formula for capitalization ... in virtual currency
Sketch 7. I read quite recently, even before the publication of the last not very pleasant data on the Internet economics, that a large influx of not only new billionaires, but also simple millionaires, should not be expected from the social Internet market in the foreseeable future. This is understandable: the increase in the size of the advertising cake, almost the only source of existence for web startups, is much slower than the increase in the army of these startups willing to taste it. And even if their founders do not make up as good business plans as they can, the pie will no longer be made from this.
Sketch 8. I even subtracted that there is a simple formula for determining the “capitalization” of a social resource, which, based on a potential advertiser, is recommended to be used in drawing up a “good business plan”. It turns out that the capitalization of a resource can be determined by the number of users “caught in the network” of this resource. Like, the cost of one visitor of a social network ranges from $ 10 to $ 100 (in the Russian market - from $ 1 to $ 10). But maybe it’s time to speak not about “conditional”, but about “virtual units”? Moreover, the economic crisis is still brewing, and with real currency (even in the conventional dimension) it will be tough.
Sketch 9. And not only the limited size of the “advertising pie” and the expected weight loss of the wallets of advertisers and investors are facing now many of the problems of new web startups. The gold rush times are over, when the launch of the next project required financial expenses only for its development. And these costs, in relation to Web 2.0, rarely went beyond a few tens of thousands of dollars. Users went to the shoals of new items, followed by advertisers, investors and buyers, who took upon themselves all the subsequent costs associated with the operation of the resource.
Sketch 10. However, we will try to give the desired for the real and believe in the reality of the linear conversion of users into voiced currency. Honestly, this will not be easier. After all, not only the advertising cake has a limited size. The population of the land, alas, is all the more limited in quantity. And almost everyone who wants to virtually communicate has already been “captured” by the pioneers of the “social world”. As for the hopes for a serious migration of users from old resources to new ones, then, according to experts, one can hardly expect this.
Sketch 11 . Indeed, by and large, because instead of MySpace, you tell StarSpace or MoonSpace, or whatever Space there is, the essence of the resource does not change (as in the parable about halva, which doesn’t become sweeter from repeating this word). Your complex social resource will become “sweeter” for users only if you put something fundamentally new into it. But just this new on the horizon and not yet seen. The situation is a bit like the one that, in the era of general shortage, a well-known satirist, drawing a paradise for goods, described it like this: “You go into a shoe store, and you are offered any shoes. You want a white bottom with a black top, you want a black bottom with a white top. " So in complex social networks: you want blogs with forums, and you want forums with blogs. The set of services is the same.
Portion Two
Once again about the social platform revolution
Sketch 12 . Many argue that the future is for more specialized, and sometimes quite closed virtual communities. I think so. However, if the participants of such communities are quite satisfied with the services provided by MySpace, FaceBook, Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki and similar social resources, then who prevents these participants from organizing themselves on the basis of the same resources?
Sketches 13, 14. These sketches contain some additional considerations on the subject of social platforms.
Competition and standardization - two banks on the same river
Sketch 15. The other day in the press skipped two messages. The first is that a couple of cross-applications have appeared for competing MySpace and FaceBook. These applications allow users of one resource to communicate with users of another, and vice versa. The second message says that Yahoo joins Open Social. Thus, of the major players on the social Internet field, this standard was, perhaps, only the main players of Facebook and MySpace. However, no one doubts that the new billionaires will not go anywhere, and the future accession is only a matter of time (for MySpace, in any case).
Sketch 16. On the same days, information appeared that the participants of the I-community 2008 conference came to the general conclusion that there is nothing uniting social resources in RuNet in the foreseeable future. And the deputy of the State Duma, who is also the Internet producer Konstantin Rykov, in general, stated (albeit on another occasion) “We don’t need to try on either the Chinese or the American way. We have our own, Russian Internet, that is, Runet ... We will have our own way. " So here again, "your way." Where?
Sketch 17. One can see the same questions that are of concern to anyone who, one way or another, works on the Internet. Here, for example, I did not have time to finish the previous sketch, as some of my LJ-friend put a note, the essence of which comes down to the following (I quote the author): “In the bourgeois, as soon as a useful service appears, it is immediately bolted with API and third-party development ... Why do we practically lack an interface culture for third-party developers? ” My commentary answer to this almost rhetorical question is placed in the full draft of the outline.
Cult of amateurs or who is the owner of the network?
Sketch 18. "Any cook can manage the state." Something in this spirit was promised by one famous revolutionary. As you know, the experiment with the cooks in power refused unsuccessful. Andreu Keen, author of the cult of amateurs: How the Internet is Killing Our Culture (Cult of the Amateurs) last year, is convinced that Web 2.0 with its concept of “user generated content” is also waiting for this.
Sketch 19. The author of the note “What happens when you do not own your startup” approaches the question of the cult of amateurs from the commercial side and once again draws our attention to a certain contradiction. Users are well “pecked” on a social resource that gives them maximum freedom of action. Advertisers prefer to stir ads in those resources where they clearly understand who is the boss (i.e. on the web). And they want to see as such professionals, and not amateurs. In turn, investors are unwilling to invest in resources whose owners are not, in fact, such. In reality, these resources are owned by their “public”. "Riots on ships" (digg, LJ), periodically stunning social Internet, more proof of this.
Sketch 20. The social platform revolution uncovered another interesting aspect of the cult of amateur dilemma. As more and more advanced platforms emerged, the requirements for the professionalism of developers of social resources began to decline steadily. Tools for the "baking" of such resources is becoming increasingly simple and accessible. And this, moreover, that the tools are not distinguished by a great variety, as, by the way, the recipe of the services laid in them. Today in Ning, for example, anyone not even familiar with the basics of programming can, literally, build their home-made product in an hour. Does this mean that in the era of social platforms, professional web builders will be left without work? Yes, that means, unless they start creating truly original resources.
For the "music" is better to pay
Sketch 21. And again, back to the abject metal. Something is hardly visible not only of revolutionary ideas in terms of the functionality of social resources, but also of original business models that orient other sources to monetize them. At best, the authors timidly say that, in addition to advertising, they will someday receive income for additional services. What are these services and how much will they give, about this, usually, is modestly silent.
Sketch 22. You have to pay for the content! Increasingly, you can hear such cries from “offended investors” who publish their information in social networks. Indeed, it is somehow strange that content carriers, whose labor forms the basis of the prosperity of many resources, themselves receive nothing for this labor. Unless, of course, do not consider moral satisfaction and "thank you" from some readers. But from "thank you", because, according to cynics, "you can not sew a fur coat." Do not work yet, as it should, motivational mechanisms in social networks. After all, one cannot consider the same, for example, karma. So after all, to pay or not to pay ?. And if you still pay, then who will do it? The participants of the discussion “Will the Web 2.0 ever be profitable,” held in Las Vegas in early March, argued about this?
I remind you that the full text of these sketches (with all the necessary links) can be found in iTech Bridge:
Portion 1 | Portion 2 | Portion 3 * | Portion 4 * | Conclusion *
- * Portia appeared after the publication of this note.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/22819/
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