Amy Shuen Blog

DIY, Uploaders, Collective User Value: Web 2.0 Strategy Research Seminar

Thanks to the Web 2.0:  A Strategy Guide book reader who emailed me and asked when I was going to start my online Web 2.0 Strategy Research Seminar.  Today.

Week 1:  DIY, Uploaders, Collective User Value

In Chapter One:  Users Create Value we point out that "Web 2.0 turbocharges network effects because online users are no longer limited by how many things they can find, see, or download off the Web, but rather by how many things they can do, interact combine, remix, upload, change and customize for themselves..." (p.1).

So, on July 23rd, you should be prepared to share your own answer to:
What's new about Web 2.0 DIY, uploaders and collective user value?
How does DIY and "fail early, often, fast" help explain the web 2.0 cash curve in Figure 1-9 p.33?

Please read and comment on the following endnotes:
7/17-  Prosumers and the Third Wave:  Compare offline and online DIY business models
7/18-  Online DIY and the experience economy:  Is today's Web 2.0 world an "experience economy"?
7/21-  Uploaders:  How major is Kelley's cross-over point?  Can we date Web 2.0 from 2005?
7/22-  How is DIY, Uploaders, experience economy related to collective user value?
7/23-  What are some other examples of Figure 1-9 p. 33?

  

Purple Cows vs. Maverick Surfer

How are prosumers, DIY and online uploaders using Web 2.0 strategy transforming the Fortune 500 and Fortune 50Million business landscape? 

It turns out to be as simple as Purple Cows vs. Maverick Surfers. 

Purple Cows:  In the Startup School 2008 talks, (see Top 10 tips from Startup School) Michael Arrington of Tech Crunch summed up his advice to entrepreneurs as be a "Purple Cow". the term coined by Seth Godin to capture the essence of "standing out in the field" as a path to success. 

Maverick surfers:  This was juxtaposed against the compelling visual put up a few hours earlier by Greg showing the ideal startup entrepreneur as the lonely but courageous surfer heading down a 5-story high Mavericks-size wave.  Greg had exhorted the audience to go after huge gigantic markets with the help of VC-funding----going for "out of the ballpark" home-runs like Google's "organizing all the world's information".    Maverick surfers ask themselves Steve Jurvetson's famous question "how high is up".  The idea is that if you choose the right industry with a huge market and the right timing, that you'll be able to ride the huge wave to success. '

Web 2.0 strategy powers up prosumers, DIYers, creative online uploaders to not only be an online, social media and hypernetworked "Purple Cow" noticed worldwide by other Purple Cow enthusiasts but to generate their own Mavericks-size wave and market instantaneously using social media platforms and viral distribution like Facebook.  This is the iLike story multiplied and leveraged by the Fortune 500 and Fortune 50Million alike.

So to continue with the Surfer analogy--dear to my heart since I'm a kite-board and windsurfer--Web 2.0 strategy allows individual users and entrepreneurs to create their own Third Wave online at the same time that they creatively find their own Blue Ocean Strategy and Purple Cow market. 

Boy, talk about mixing and re-mixing metaphors...

Here's a Web 2.0 hip answer to the age-old corporate strategic question of whether individual, entrepreneurial and company competences are more important to sustainable competitive advantage or larger industry-level, structural forces and macro-economic trends.   Hundreds of strategic research articles and scholarly tomes have been written to try to separate out the impact of "distinctive", "core", "innovative" and "dynamic" capabilities from industry-level factors on strategic performance.  Purple cows and maverick surfers can co-exist and collaborate in the hypernetworked world.

Web 2.0 Strategy Research Seminar Online

The readers of my O'Reilly Web 2.0 Strategy book forum know that  I use the book forum as a web cafe or mashup between a conversation, a helpdesk and and strategy advice column--"ask Dr. Amy". 

In contrast, my blog is like an ongoing web 2.0 strategy research seminar online.  I've scheduled my blog postings around the 100 or so end-notes in my book and will be adding commentary and linking to new or updated information from the authors of the many different books, articles, cases and references that are recommended. 

In May, we will be discussing several key Chapter One topics:
Online DIY and the experience economy
Uploaders
Collective user value
Freemiums
Public sharing and Creative Commons
Semantic Web and metadata
Business model analysis
Single customer and per user economics
Financial valuation methodologies
Funding requirements of Web 1.0 vs. 2.0