All entries for Wednesday 06 June 2007
June 06, 2007
Not everybody is buying in to Web 2.0
Web 2.0 Is User Generated Content just a cheap profit generating trick?
The big change for me in Web 2.0 is that you leverage the people's resources."
This is why websites are so keen to harness what they call the wisdom of crowds.Businesses are much cheaper to run if you get your customers to do most of the work generating content
Perhaps that is why users are made to feel so good about Web 2.0. It venerates the amateur over the expert and tells us we can all collaborate in producing something worthwhile.
The Growth in Online Software: an Advertisers Paradise?
Ian Hardy Click's North America technology correspondent has raised some interesting issues in relation to Web 2.0 when it comes to the growth of online software:
Adobe has released a stripped-down web version of its video editing software, called Remix, and later this year plans to launch an internet version of its very successful photo manipulation program, Photoshop.
One incentive for companies to supply online software is compatibility. In one go all customers can be upgraded to the newest version and create files that are universally compatible, unlike different generations of Word documents.
"Another advantage of online software is that the companies can track exactly what you do and how you use it. Then they can target specifically to you," said Mr Thompson.
"If you send a lot of e-mails about they'll know that maybe you're trying to buy a cellphone, and they can serve you ads on cellphones.
"So the companies really like it, and it's to the companies' advantage for the software to work extremely well and for you to use it all the time because then they get more information and then they can sell you more stuff."
Moral of the story is you will have a choice of free or very cheap online software and have to put up with cleverly targetted advertising aimed at YOU. Or, you could just pay Adobe the £600 + for Photoshop. It's a no brainer really :-).