There has never been a better time in history than now to be marketing on the Internet. How would you like to be ahead of 98% of other marketers, gain an unfair advantage over your competitors, and start grabbing market share before anyone realizes they should have been doing the same for the past year? Hopefully, you answered yes. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be on the leading edge and grabbing market share before all the rest do?
Recognize any of these?
Think about this first set of terms:
collaboration, blogging, content sharing, online video, social networks
Now think about these second set of terms:
mobile browsing, live streaming video, microblogging, personalization, semantic
Take a look at these two groups of companies. How many are you familiar with in each group?
Group 1: Facebook, Wikipedia, Blogger, YouTube, PRWeb, Squidoo, TypePad, MySpace, Scribd
Group 2: Twitter, Plurk, Ustream, Joost, Tumblr, iGoogle, OpenID, Salesforce, Funsites
Chances are you recognize many more in the first group than in the second. The good news: You’re in the majority. The bad news: Time is of the essence.
The purpose of these two exercises was to show you the different trends that are already taking place and the new companies that are shaping the future of the Web. In the first exercise, collaboration, blogging, content sharing, online video, and social networksall are Web 2.0 terms. The second group was composed of Web 3.0 terms. In the second exercise, group 1 is composed of Web 2.0 companies, and group 2 is composed of Web 3.0 companies.
Many people have said we are still years away from Web 3.0. We reply that we are already living it. The drastic shift is already taking place with changes happening all around us. We have been so encapsulated with Web 2.0 that we have put blinders on to the shift to Web 3.0.