Recently i had lunch with a customer that we had just finished delivering a taxonomy advisory project that focused on their 'retail employee' portal. I have known this customer for a while and the folks that work there are pretty tech savvy so of course during lunch a bunch of things came up in regards to the gadgets and tools we use in our day to day life and at work.During lunch, one of them asked me a question that i had not been asked in a while- what was the "coolest and newest" application that i had been using and would recommend? After a couple seconds of awkward silence, I said that i really didn't really have an answer for something 'new'. In regards to services that i have been using more and more and find extremely valuable i mentioned things LinkedIn that have used for years (highlighting the new features which i love), SlideShare and Twitter (and Twitter apps) of course....but what else? We talked a little about the iPhone of course and even Facebook- but there wasn't anything i could point to that provided a great new service- especially for use by the enterprise user.
Today's post on the "Death of Web 2.0" on TechCrunch reminded me of that conversation. In that post, the author points out that more and more companies are not using the term as part of their pitch to get covered and and according to the Google trends analysis the author did it shows that less people are searching on the term. I have always used "Web 2.0" as a marketing label- not as a description of technology per say- so i wonder what are companies indeed labeling themselves? "Social Media" and "Social Networking" are probably used more and more, but what else?
So i still feel 'out-of-the-loop' so perhaps it is:
- there is no new label like 'Web 2.0' to latch on to?
- or maybe there just isn't a lot of services that are coming out that excite me?
- i have my head in my arse?
- the 'channels' that i am still dialed into are not doing their jobs and online coverage of new products and services are lacking
- i don't know where to look [perhaps you can help me with this one?]
Image|Flickr|An Era passed (record labels) by Olivander [i recommend visiting Flickr page]
6 comments :
Hi Daniela
It's a good question. I suspect we've all got to change the question from "what's new" to "what's really working". No ones really covering that.
Significantly more boring a topic, I know :)
Happy V-day, Sameer
I Agree Sameer- "what's really working" is a more important answer then what is new and cool!
I agree. I see a lot of excitement with iPhone apps and Twitter but have not seen anything remarkably different that jumps up and grabs you. There is a lot of incremental innovation though.
I have moved from being excited by new apps to being excited to find new people on Twitter. So it is possible that I am not really looking.
The last bit of excitement was discovery of Twine.
Maybe it's not the tools that are exciting anymore, it's the new ways that we interact with people. The term "Web 2.0" can elicit some nasty responses from some of the technologists I know, but the shift to "social media", "interactive media" or as the White House calls it, "New media" is statrting to take the focus off the tools/technology, and put it more on the conversation.
Or maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part, because I have iPhone envy.
Web 2.0 is great for marketing. I agree! It's the biggest traffic technique since the late 90's! Twitter is getting very popular as well. It's a great tool too!
IMHO the most interesting things on the Internet these days circle around structured data, Semantic web and open data. That's cool (well, I think so), but the 'coolness' isn't visible to the layman. If you don't have the background to understand why these technologies are important, it's going to be very difficult to see their significance. This stuff is 'foundational' technology and the value won't be seen until apps come out that use it to provide services that would be impossible without it.
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