Andy Theyers: “My 2.0pence”
Nice, considered post from Andy of Isotoma on Web2.0.
His point about the ratio of limited impact: maximal hype rings very true. He references the Redeye blog’s point that TechCrunch is not the web, even though it has the “53,651” globly Geekhood tuning in (I wonder if my RSS subscription therefore makes me a geek? Woo!).
More importantly, Andy’s noted that many of these ‘new companies’ are simply peddling that which can be achieved with existing tools:
it’s also worth noting that writely could actually be deployed in about 15 minutes with one of kupu, FCKeditor or Tiny MCE and some storage on Amazon’s S3 platform.
I like the ambition, focus upon tools and user context, and the elements of simplicity that “web 2.0” allows us to talk about. However, the warning signs are there: never mind how simple the idea, spend marketing dollars to get first mover advantage (which these days means “tug Yahoo|Google|Amazon’s chain and get bought”).
Now, all I have to do is persuade Andy to knock up some of these “15 minute” mashups for me as a favour… 😉