What's Next After Web 2.0

As the global financial crisis has gradually got worse over the past few weeks, I thought, what does this mean for the Internet. ReadWriteWeb as a publication focuses on technology - web products and trends - rather than business and VC happenings. Thus, with the exception of one of our feature writers Bernard Lunn, who has written many reports on how businesses can survive this period, we are usually kept outside the credit crunch discussion until now.

But we are clear now that the financial problems of the world will have little impact on web technology, which led. In fact, it looks like we have arrived at one of those giant inflexion points - where one Web era usurped by others.

Editor's Note: Looking back in 2008 there were about ReadWriteWeb positions who do not receive the attention we believe they deserve - whether because of the time, competing news, etc. Thus, in the year-end series under the name Redux, we 're the restoration of some of these hidden gems. This is one of them, we hope you enjoy (re) read it!

Of course, this happened when the latest Web 2.0 was coined in the O'Reilly Media in about 2004. Fortunately, not long before that ReadWriteWeb was born (early 2003). So ReadWriteWeb has been documenting Web 2.0 ever since. Over the past couple of years, we focused on other, perhaps more important, trends - Semantic Web, recommendation technologies, web sites becoming web services, wireless Internet and much more.

Welcome Return of Innovation
While we will continue to see a successful Web 2.0 to grow and prosper, perhaps - social networks, mashups, User Generated Content, etc. - It is now time for innovation. I'm not saying anything revolutionary there, because the old cliche that technical innovation is thriving in times of recession. Nat Torkington from O'Reilly Radar put this in the context of Web 2.0 in recent years:

"During the boom, companies direct development and occupy great talent at best evolutionary improvements over the state of technology. Companies great chasers of new things, but not to make great new things. Recession means technologists cease to be paid a huge amount to duplicate the work of others. The Great Tech Bust It Two gave us 37Signals, Flickr and del.icio.us, and there is a strong argument to be noted that many companies spent the next six years chasing that they have created. "

Thus, we can expect to welcome a return to web innovation in 2008/09, in line with what Flickr and 37Signals created back in the early days of Web 2.0. Nevertheless, Internet entrepreneurs will need to make adjustments to the economic climate. Many have noted that the new focus on the bottom line of your business is crucial that we examine below. But perhaps equally important, as pointed out by Nat, there is an opportunity to take advantage of open source technologies and cheaper cloud computing infrastructure.
Yes, Tighten your belt, but the Open Your Minds, too ...

In recent weeks, some VCs have been preaching high belt tightening as the main response to the economy. More than a few people expressed cynicism about the recommendation, subject to advertising and party brosaniem days of Web 2.0. New York VC Fred Wilson wrote a post today, partly in response to a comment Bernard left his blog in which he defends advice he and other VCs sacrificed after the financial crisis was going. In principle, that the consultation was to batten down hatches, cut costs, and Fred said, "to act responsibly and make sure that we all survive to fight another day."

This is a common sense of all the recommendations, particularly with regard to Web 2.0 was mostly on consumer applications. I am certainly not an economist, but in the sense that the tight credit market consumer spending will lead to a reduction - which have a significant impact on consumer Web applications, as well as the trickle to other parts of the ecosystem.

But I would really like to see engineers, entrepreneurs and VCs to take a long-term connection with the crisis, and. Sramana Mitra wrote a great post on the Forbes describing some of the possibilities for innovation. The "Open letter to the leaders of Silicon Valley", Sramana first gave some information that led to a new Web 2.0, and then with the objective to create technology for education, health and social welfare. As an example, she wrote about the opportunities in health and education:

"As the smart-phone movement marches, led by Steve Dzhobs' iPhone, we can not create seamless bridges between doctors, patients and insurance companies, which may reduce the $ 250 billion expenditure on health administration?

And on the Internet, we can not create a body of standardized content and methodology for teachers of all of us - and the world - that includes parents in the process and involved children through "Edutainment", exactly the same way, MySpace and "World of Warcraft" are involved children? "

Tim O'Reilly was on a similar mission, since its presentation in the Web 2.0 Expo earlier this year, for a beginning to address the "big problems". Its main idea is to "work that matters."
What's more ... Let us know in the comments!

We ReadWriteWeb been covering the major Web-based applications and things like health 2.0 this year. But we have only scratched the surface, just like most novice Internet companies. Since the problems in the economy are beginning to affect the world of technology, we will re-double our efforts in that document, we hope, is the exciting new era of web innovation. There are strict time ahead, but equally there opportunities.

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