Tuesday, October 11, 2005
How will 2005 avoid the pitfalls of 1999?
Browster CEO Scott Milener has written a post over on the Browster Blog, where I co-author, about Web 2.0...how it felt exciting, and somewhat like the heady days of 1999...which is also a little scary.
Scott is hoping that this time around we've all learned some of the lessons of the bubble. Sometimes it seems we have, and then sometimes a flurry of acquisution or merger activity hapens, and you gotta wonder.
What's also interesting to me about Scott's post is the way he talks about the next phase of search/online technology being about giving value to capture the customer...and then using anonymous data, or even shared data, to deliver targeted content, targeted advertising, a personalized and customized experience.
Of course he mentions Browster, but also such impending apps as Flock.
And all of this is reminding me a great deal of the "GoogleZon" Epic video that imagined a future of always on, always personalized content, communication and information. And the mixed reactions to the concept.
The key is the first part of Scott's formula: you better continue to focus on the value you're giving if you want to start controlling more and more of our data. I can hear the protests now: "but the user is in control!" Sure, of the superficial...the look, the feel, the order, the delivery channel.
But Web 2.0 companies are controlling our data. And that's a lot more monetizable (is that a word?) than eyeballs!
And perhaps that's how 2005 will differ from 1999.
Scott is hoping that this time around we've all learned some of the lessons of the bubble. Sometimes it seems we have, and then sometimes a flurry of acquisution or merger activity hapens, and you gotta wonder.
What's also interesting to me about Scott's post is the way he talks about the next phase of search/online technology being about giving value to capture the customer...and then using anonymous data, or even shared data, to deliver targeted content, targeted advertising, a personalized and customized experience.
Of course he mentions Browster, but also such impending apps as Flock.
And all of this is reminding me a great deal of the "GoogleZon" Epic video that imagined a future of always on, always personalized content, communication and information. And the mixed reactions to the concept.
The key is the first part of Scott's formula: you better continue to focus on the value you're giving if you want to start controlling more and more of our data. I can hear the protests now: "but the user is in control!" Sure, of the superficial...the look, the feel, the order, the delivery channel.
But Web 2.0 companies are controlling our data. And that's a lot more monetizable (is that a word?) than eyeballs!
And perhaps that's how 2005 will differ from 1999.
// posted by ElisaC @ 8:07 AM 
