Web 2.0 and the importance of niches
Oct 13th, 2005 by jim galley
Tim O’rielly posted an excellent description of what is Web 2.0, complete with a tired / wired esque list of prior and future net implementations. Required reading – go take a look.
The 50k view of this manifesto describes a 2.0 company core competencies as:
- Services, not packaged software, with cost-effective scalability
- Control over unique, hard-to-recreate data sources that get richer as more people use them
- Trusting users as co-developers
- Harnessing collective intelligence
- Leveraging the long tail through customer self-service
- Software above the level of a single device
- Lightweight user interfaces, development models & business models
Throughout the post, the term “long tail” is frequently used. In this context the origin of this phrase can be attributed to Chris Andersons article in Wired Magazine. While the article is focused on the entertainment industry – Anderson describes how the persistance of the net can work to the advantage of niche market players by leveraging the different distribution and sales channel opportunities the internet creates.
In Web 2.0, these channels of opportunity are more numerous than what Anderson describes – blogs, RSS feeds and contextual tagging is just the tip of the iceburg. Understanding, uncovering and exploiting these channels requires the core competencies mindset described above – so take a hard look at those project plans and see if they fit in the tired or wired category.