When I first glanced through the doc I thought, "Oh no, John Battelle and Tim O'Reilly have come up with a new, annoying buzzword -- Web Squared."
Then I started reading it, and around page three I thought, "Hey, there's actually some really interesting stuff in here."
But then I kept reading... and reading, and reading. And, eventually, around word 8,900, I went back to thinking, "Oh no, John Battelle and Tim O'Reilly have come up with a new, annoying buzzword -- Web Squared."
Even so, I recommend you read the paper, or at least skim it, as much for what's missing as for what’s covered.
After the hour or so it took to properly digest this opus, my main takeaway was that this paper only covers a slice of the debate.
Most importantly, both authors repeatedly fail to apply a yardstick of profitability (or "business viability") when talking about the companies that make up their new Web-Whatevered World. When they talk about "powerful new platforms like YouTube and Twitter" I feel as if I've been warped back into the late 90s.
The fact that YouTube loses around $1.5 million per day for Google and that Twitter has no business plan at all matters -- especially if you’re an IT manager at a large enterprise, or a C-level executive that has to cost-justify technology expenditures and figure out how Internet apps and systems map to corporate objectives; or, for that matter, if you’re a publisher of B2B information online (like yours truly).
In fact, it should make all of us think long and hard, not about whether Web Squared is the future, but how much of that future is (or is not) relevant to our work today, in a recessionary world.
Because if your job falls into any of the three categories above, a lot of this is not relevant right now, and a lot of it could be downright damaging to your business.
Yes, think about it. Be aware. But don't look to the Battelle/O'Reilly paper as a roadmap or blueprint for reinventing current businesses or launching new ones in the immediate future.
The biggest challenge for most businesses right now is working out how to use the Internet to make or save money. The biggest problem for Messrs O'Reilly and Battelle right now is working out how to extend the life of their Web 2.0 event franchise, which has been wildly profitable for them.
Their answer (and it's a great answer) is to focus on content -- making their event franchise the place to discover the future of the Internet (maybe… though the idea of going to an in-person event to talk about the virtual Internet world is starting to look increasingly passé). But to be successful in that goal they need to create some excitement. And another word for excitement is "hype."
