For all the fanfare about Web 2.0, New Media, User Generated Content or <insert Next Buzzword Here>, take note.
Have you ever wonder why, despite all the buzz-fuzz-wozz-luzz, it seems that your colleague next to you is still not visiting Digg? Ever wondered why most people are still using their crippled Hotmail accounts instead of the AJAXy, pow-wow Gmail with unlimited flexibility? Ever wondered why, despite the popularity of Flickr, most people are just using it as yet-another-site-with-good-storage and are not exactly tagging them as Flickr hopes everyone will?
Probably because all the crowds that are using Digg, Slashdot, Reddit, Flickr, Gmail or the Next Big Thing is, unfortunately, the same-old-crowd. Recycled crowd. All these great websites are all probably used by the same group of people with a few differences here and there but, still, probably no larger than the entire size Slashdot crowd.
The graphic above (created by the stunningly simple and powerful Gliffy) best describes what I’m talking about. The entire rectangle represents the entire online population with the smaller red rectangle as the fraction of the Internet population actively visiting and using all the buzz website. It is definitely over-represented here, with the actual proportion at least 10 times smaller.
What I’m trying to drive at is that it has always been the same group of people visiting using the same few services. The pie, referring to the number of people using the buzz-fuzz services, was never enlarged, the only exception being Flickr which appeals to a drastically different crowd.
New startups need to take note that it’s not enough being Yet-Another-Digg or Yet-Another-Flickr. Whatever you are doing must capture and enlarge the pie and to allow more people to participate in your creation. Gliffy might be a notable application that is ridiculously easy and fun to use. Good luck with your next venture!
July 6th, 2006 at 10:33 pm
Erm. I guess why the penetration of these tools in the mainstream internet community isn’t as well as you think it should be, is that the average netizen is just plain LAZY. I do not know what Gliffy or Flikr does, because there is no dire need for me to know. Most of it, are just scalable/improved versions of it predecessors, but are just not as easy to learn (for the older old folks…) or maybe the projected sophistry involved just simply puts them off.
One more thing, I AM LAZY. But at least I use gmail. lol.
August 21st, 2006 at 7:21 am
Challenges of the Web 2.0 Entrepeneur…
Web 2.0Honestly, I have no clue what it is. I mean, i’ve heard many different definitions about it. I’ve checked wikipedia. I’ve read blogs. I tried to find out what exactly is this Web 2.0 thing is. The definition that I like is the …
September 12th, 2006 at 1:06 am
It is the same concept as “The Tipping Point” in which you need critical mass for one thing to make that one thing so successful and the rest a failure.
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:41 pm
There is alot of overlap. But just like Web 1.0, people are going to figure out if they need these services, and adopt them over time.
The younger generation of bloggers do consume these services.
But to contribute data to these services will require an incentive.
November 30th, 2007 at 10:57 pm
Thanks for the review of Gliffy. We are very appreciative. If you have any suggestions and/or feedback please drop us a line at our newly revamped website! Thanks,
debik at gliffy dot com