Categories
facebook web 2.0

The secret to making successful web 2.0 startups?

The entire switch here is to think of these websites not as collections of features or products, but rather manufactured experiences that are designed to be compelling wastes of peoples’ time ;-) — Andrew Chen

http://andrewchen.typepad.com/andrew_chens_blog/2007/08/reward-schedule.html

Categories
conferences games design games industry web 2.0

AGDC 2007: Web 2.0 + Games meetup

I’m talking at Austin GDC on “Caching for Web 2.0”, and I’ll be having a small dig at the games industry and the obsession some people have with “game 1.0/2.0/3.0” on the side, but I’d really like to meet up with anyone interested in how best we can capitalize on the lessons from Web 2.0.

I think the vast majority of people in games still don’t “get it” when it comes to understanding web 2.0, and are going to make some really stupid egg-on-face mistakes and miss a few more big opportunities. But’s that just my opinion… :)

What’s yours?

UPDATE:
Venue: Halcyon
Time: 19:00
Day: Wednesday 5th

UPDATE 2: a couple of photos here

Categories
introductions web 2.0

What is Web 2.0?

This question keeps coming up, and most people just need a simple answer. This is the quick and dirty explanation I came up with for some colleagues with the added emphasis on concrete benefits rather than just theoretical ideas.

What is Web 2.0?

“Web 2.0 was the moment we stopped using computers and started using the internet” – frantic

…is a brilliant answer, I love it, and it sounds really short, but takes at least 10 minutes to explain properly. Probably more like an hour, if we’re being honest here. If you already know what Web 2.0 is, and know lots of examples and counter-examples, that sums it up neatly. But cryptically.

Theoretical definition

(my super short summary of: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html)

  • Data is the most important thing in the world
  • Mass-market consumers are the most important business-partner in the world
  • Software that you can use today is more important in every single way than software that “works” or is “good”
  • Quantity (of consumers) beats quality: use Network Effect to get vast numbers of users very quickly
  • The internet is part of every platform. You are *always* selling stuff to the internet, *even when you think you aren’t*

Maybe explaining what the concrete benefits are will help.

Here goes…

OK, what does it actually do?

Web 2.0 has four main benefits:
1. A clever trick lets you use “the internet” as your development team, your sales team, your marketing team, or your support team. Increase your output by a factor of 100!

2. Make money out of other people’s data

3. Use other people’s development teams to build features for you

4. Provide a user-experience that is so many times better than anything you’ve ever done before that your sales increase substantially just because it’s so much more pleasant to use