10 Ways Web 2.0 Promises to Change the Way We Live and Work

I’ve spent some time recently thinking about how Web 2.0 will impact our daily lives.  Rather than products, features, or technologies, I wanted to think about it in terms of themes.  In the end, I came up with 10 themes that I think encompass the promise, in real-world terms, of the modern web.  I plan to elaborate on each of these themes in coming weeks in this space, but here’s the overview (in no particular order):

1. Organizing the Unorganized.   The power of the Internet to provide structure to niches enables communities of everyone and everything to form easily.  Support groups, specialized information, and sometimes obscure discussions are no more than a mouse click away.  Companies are sprouting up all over to organize everything from parents and pets to coders and sports fans. (Hat tip to Scott Cleland of Precursor for helping gel this idea for me.)
2. Enhancing Consumer Choice. Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail explains how much easier it is for content producers to make their stuff available online to consumers.  The hits may still rule, as Lee Gomes pointed out in the Wall Street Journal, but consumers can now access books, songs, and movies that would have otherwise been overlooked or out of reach in the past.
3. Empowering Individuals to Become the Media.  A variety of tools have come together to enable virtually anyone to become part of the media.  Podcasting, blogging, vlogging, and even consumer review sites put the power of publishing in the hands of average users.  Services like Lulu even allow people to easily and affordably enter book publishing.  And the traditional media has taken note and now uses these web publishing platforms for themselves – and the consumer generated content as information for its stories.
4. Facilitating Constant, Cheap Communication.  People are more connected now than ever.  Instant messaging, free VoIP, text messaging, and mobile email all make it simple and inexpensive to stay in touch 24/7/365.  The opportunity to more easily communicate with each other – and with businesses – opens the door to new and better services that take advantage of constant connectedness.
5. Sharing with Friends.  Unlike the “unorganized” mentioned above, friends typically have some organization to them.  But Web 2.0 sites take advantage of technology to make it easier to share photos, build broader networks, engage in broader conversations, and even develop new online friendships through services as varied as MySpace, World of Warcraft, and Second Life.
6. Enabling a Multimedia Revolution.  Cheap pipes and improved technologies make it that much easier for consumers to enjoy a rich multimedia experience from wherever they are.  Whether it’s the mobile SlingBox product making it possible to watch live TV on your cell phone, or a service designed to bring real movie choice to your widescreen TV at home, or a subscription music service, these technologies will change how you watch and listen, where you watch and listen, and what you watch and listen to.
7. Making it Easier to Find and Spend Online.  Web 1.0 featured search engines like Google and portals like Yahoo.  (I still remember the very old days when you went to akebono.stanford.edu instead of Yahoo.com to find the portal that then resided on Jerry Yang’s personal workstation.)  Today there’s so much information and so many products out there that the big players often don’t make it easy to find niche items.  So vertical search has popped up as an important tool to enable searching for specific categories of information.  Jobs, news, video, coupons, products, photos, and myriad other categories have their own search engines.  And services like PayPal and others make it easier to buy small amounts of content or products that would not have been feasible before.  Continued work in the area of simplified micropayments will make it easier for consumers and producers alike to enjoy and build niche markets.
8. Democratizing Labor Markets.  It used to be that to hire someone or find a contract worker a company would have to advertise in the paper or rely on word of mouth or a professional organization for a referral.  Today, a wide range of services have popped up to match freelancers and job seekers with the companies that need their help.  Services like RentACoder or LogoWorks and even Amazon’s Mechanical Turk do a nice job of providing a marketplace to reduce the friction of the consultant and freelance process.
9. Breaking Down Geographic Barriers.  Today it is just as likely that a worker in Homer, Alaska will get a gig as one in Manhattan, thanks to the democratization of labor markets.  The tools of constant communication and prolific bandwidth make it easy to live and work where you want.  Web 2.0 companies themselves no longer feel constrained to exist in traditional hotbeds like Silicon Valley and Route 128.  And though offshoring gets a bad name at times, it serves a real purpose for many companies and ultimately consumers.  And it isn’t just workers who benefit, communities of the interested span geographic boundaries.  You’re no longer limited to the local book or wine group, you can join one online and meet folks from across the country or even the globe.
10. Engaging the Individuals in Conversation with the Powerful.  Never has it been easier for average people to engage in conversation with the powerful.  Whether a CEO, a prominent member of the media, a presidential candidate, or these days even an a-list blogger, typical citizens have real access to a conversation with these powerful individuals.  Blog comments, interactive chats, and other online forums provide an opportunity to empower people.  These conversations improve the powerful by helping them better understand what matters and by getting great ideas.  And it lessens the sense of frustration that many have had in the past about being unable to get their message across to those in power.

Tags: Web 2.0, future

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