Seth Porges, who writes for a column called “The Futurist” every Thursday on CrunchGear, this week discusses what he thinks will eventually prove to be Web 2.0’s achilles heel.
His thesis: “The Web 2.0 era will come to end sooner rather than later. Because if there is one immutable law of humankind, it is that we are really, really lazy.”
Unlike with Web 1.0, most Web 2.0 companies rely on user generated content (UGC) for their success. Read The Futurist: Will Human Laziness Burst The Web 2.0 Bubble? to find out why Porges thinks UGC’s heydey will eventually come to an end.
I disagree with the statement. The Web 2.0 model is proving to make the web a more interactive and exciting forum for people to express themselves – whether they are contributing to the web, or whether they are simply viewing what’s out there.
I honestly don’t think so because information sharing is something people won’t get enough of. Yes, it may bring end to certain stale applications but platforms truly based on collaborative spirit e.g. wikipedia have a long way to go. In fact, improved network connections and better interfaces (like Multi touch systems) will further foster participation of people into generating and consuming web content. Web 2.0, if it refers to collaborative web, is definitely to stay here.
Say what you will… I’m cash flow positive and bubble proof.
And that’s with a company that was “Deadpooled”. Sounds like a certain tech blog is cheering on a bubble burst…
“Achilles HEEL” not “HEAL” please… Crappy journalism will undo Web 2.0 as quickly as anything else.
My sincere apologies, Ethan.
Oh, and James, I’m not cheering on a bubble burst by any means. I just think its important (and simply interesting) to think about the looming dangers that many internet companies might face.
“And that’s with a company that was “Deadpooled””
@James,
I quickly Googled you and saw you contract for Disney. That’s not exactly Web 2.0.
Our employees do Web 2.0 sites for Enterprise customers, but that’s not exactly web 2.0 either. I think the blog post is referring to websites that are not made for corporate reasons. Like those that live off of advertising.
We currently have an explosion of duplicated sites, models, and a groping for VC hand holds. Where the horizontal market applications for Web 20 and the social media sub elements may endure a shakeout, more professional applications that use the very same technologies will infiltrate the verticals.
http://bizcast....es-in-tech.html
Most journalists are focusing on user generated content. I do not think web2.0 will burst, but rather quite the opposite. New websites will come out that do even more things, and less required from the user.
@12 – i hear ya man – i hate it when they get into “hippie technology junks” too! and they drink beer – zomg!!!one!!11!!eleventyone!!11!!
but seriously, +1 to the “bubble will burst” crowd, but it won’t happen until 2010. so ride the wave now.
When the people who spend all their time contributing UGC grow up, get real jobs and don’t have time to contribute to the “wisdom of the crowds,” then the pop will happen.
I think we actually NEED a pop. The internet has become a plethora of “ME TOO!” sites. And part of the blame lies with VCs who have allowed the “Google ads!” as a sole business plan, to get major funding. So now every CS graduate thinks he is going to be another Sergey Brin with his digg clone.
Then you have companies who give insane valuations to users that add to the problem. A user is not worth 500 dollars…hell probably not even worth 5 bucks…but time and time again companies buy others for huge sums based solely on the amount of users. And with Google advertisements a company can stay a float long enough to be able to wait out until it builds a big enough user base to sell out.
The difference between the first bubble, is this time its the VCs that get screwed big time, and not the consumer.
UGC makes something 2.0? Damn the USENET, FIDO, Yahoo Groups, eBay, GeoCities and ham radio aficionados, you know, the first podcasters or whatever…
Lazyness undoing web 2.0
Yeah right, lazyness is the reason it will thrive.
People sitting on their asses blogging all day!
I totally disagree with this.
Would you say that people will stop painting because people are lazy? Or perhaps you think that people will stop writing poetry because they’re lazy. This just isn’t the case.
Blogging, podcasting, and other UGC have become an outlet and hobby for many people. Sure, there was definitely an initial bubble. We’re seeing the number of active blogs starting to taper now (that’s why tumble blogs and twitter, which are easier to maintain, are getting more attention). But there will always be a healthy tier of people creating content.
I believe that humans always have a desire to create and leave their mark in this world, whether the motivation is vanity or just the sheer joy of creating.
So, do all the responses to this post prove that Web 2.0 is alive and well?
But, seriously, the real question is how much momentum is out there for user-generated content and what keeps that going (and gaining) over time. While there’s plenty of “lazy” people out there who are a lot more likely to be “consumers” rather than “producers”, there seem to be no lack of others churning out text/audio/video/graphics/etc in the hopes that the consumers will eat it up.
I think the article was a bit too narrow-focused, using examples from MySpace, Friendster, and Wikipedia. Are these really representative of what Web 2.0 is supposed to be? Regardless of the painful debate (thanks to Tim O’reilly for his stab at clarification: http://www.orei...-is-web-20.html) on what Web 2.0 *is*, it seems to me Seth needs to address why we should expect special-interest and community sites related to politics, travel, sports, video, etc. are just going to wither away.
Plateau? Sure, I’d buy that. But just like any number of web-based businesses and services that survived the dotbomb blowout, shouldn’t we expect a non-insubstantial number of sites and services to keep rocking and rolling after the next one?
@james
what is the differences between your site and doctoc (the other one that TC blogged about)?
business models that depend on UGC will have a tough time. it’s not that we’re lazy – there’s just not enough ugg to go around. there’s plenty of kids still in the pipe. UGC will continue to grow (quantity not quality) at popular the short-tail sites.
Wait till you see my latest creation: Web 3.0. I invented it.
In my opinion, I think web2.0 will stick around for awhile, everyone love to be involved in a community.
I’d like to see what they come up with web3.0….
Regards,
Carlo Selorio
Interesting article. I tend to think that web 2.0 sites left uncontrolled/un-moderated will start to resemble each other due to the similarities in the demographics that submit the most UGC. High schoolers and college kids have largely taken over sites like Digg and YouTube. Not a bad thing, but definitely not appealing to the 40 year old who is on the fence about contributing to 2.0 himself. I predict short-term consolidation among similar sites, but then longer-term growth of UGC as current generations age and potentially grow more confortable with UGC…and as the current college kids grow up and take on more refined and varied interests.
Launching a .com in a week or two. We assume no user generated content but allow it to improve the site if it shows up. It also helps to aggregate content from other UGC aggregator sites so that if one fails you still have plenty of content to choose from. Brands come and go but interesting crap will never die.
You know–this guy is completely off. Maybe human laziness would have been a factor if we were trying to push web 2.0 with the same technology. I can run a blog, post a picture, upload a video, and search the internet—all from my phone. It would be interesting to see if religious sites ever hopped on board with the web 2.0 phase.
Karim Baz
Well, although any one person is doomed to get bored of “posting” and retire from active contribution, the system that works will keep the buzz alive by constantly churning new blood into the treadmill.
These newbies will always take some time adding activity to the site before they too get lazy. So from an outsider’s pov, nothing changes, there is net growth. Sites that die do so because the amount of newbies are not enough to make up for the amount of “grads”.
As of right now the amount of people who are bored to death of web 2.0 doesn’t even make up a fraction of the people who still have yet to get broadband in the first place.
This is echo chamber talk.
I’d really like to be and side with Seth on this one, if only because of all the annoying hoopla surrounding everything web2.0 (that dirty-buzzword-du-jour).
However, I disagree with the thesis that it will burst because people are inherently lazy. This is true but we should not mistake the correlation of laziness with the bubble bursting because “people generated content” requires work.
The reasoning is simple: people may be lazy, BUT they (we) don’t see doing these things as work. We see these in part as a participation and expression of themselves, or just simply getting a kick out of uploading a funny or interesting video to YouTube for everyone else to see and marvel at, and maybe get a few kicks out of the responses or contribution. Ditto for MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, whatever. People may eventually tire if there are a bazillion of these things coming up, but it’ll be a long time and in the meantime, people are going to congregate where their peers are, or risk being left out.
I think web 2.0 is more about creative expression and availability of medium rather than free labor. The point being, it takes effort to express one’s self. As with web 1.0 the sites that gain critical mass in their respective markets will take all. It’s a matter of medium innovation, the obvious and practical innovations will probably wrap up this coming year. Notice all ready though the newer startups are highly technical and involve many highly skilled engineers (i.e. not Tom from myspace
)
@Chrisr
. I’m not sure that has anything to do with the pending demise of content contrib (or rather the distribution of it) though.
I agree with you … the notion that a site slathered in “Ajax” somehow makes it more modern .. is erroneous at best
my 2 cents.
Richard Corsale
How about we all agree not to use the term “web 2.0″. It is not a version of something we planned and built toward. The web has, and will, continued to evolve like anything. Sure, UGC is a theme that characterizes the latest upward trend in web-based businesses, but this was mostly enabled by tolerable operating speeds (not 56kbps dialup). Yes, the www will evolve, but no it will not be 3.0.
Al Gore: You invented this damn thing, tell’em!
the web 2.0h
phrase is yet another way to say that the web has evolved and become more peer seeking
the web 3.0 will not have the UGC (user generated content) but the Google generated content LOL
Like any market segment, these UGC / Social Networking sites are inflating too fast to be sustainable.
@3 – the problem is that there is TOO MUCH information that causes professional bloggers to follow hundreds of news feeds, all of which are “important”. Countless times I see tweets coming across my screen saying “just marked 1500 news articles as read” or “I am overloaded with news feeds”. At what point does it go from being news to a tiered echo effect of mainstream bloggers?
@9 – valid point — diversification.
Honestly, what’s going to kill this UGC bubble is the arrogance of these entrepreneurs and the VCs that finance them. Most of the new companies that I see are just rehashing old ideas and trying to make them look prettier.
@ChrisR
That’s my day job, yes. WackyLabs LLC is my business, and skinnyr.com is my site that is deadpooled…