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Riding the second dot com wave
Introduction
The beginning of the end - or - the end of the beginning
It was in the early months of 2000 that it all seemed to end,
The dot-com boom was over, billions of (insert favourite
currency here) were lost.
You might be tempted to think that the Internet was now a
deserted wasteland and the human race had moved on to the next
big thing. A quick look at Google's web site reveals that it
currently indexes some 8 billion web pages ! That's quite a leap
from the 4 billion pages it was indexing a couple of years ago.
The Internet is far from a deserted wasteland, its thriving and
getting bigger by the day.
What happened
If at first you don't succeed - blame someone else
Every one has their own take on why things went wrong so here's
mine. It became apparent to many of us that most big companies
just didn't "get" the Internet, seeing it as just another way to
force-feed everyone with adverts as they had done with TV.
Others made their sites so slow and tedious that it was easier
to go shopping the old fashioned way. Some even believed that
the Internet was a revolution that would sweep aside the old
businesses and that the normal rules of finance did not apply
any more.
Either way, the Internet population mostly ignored those sites
and went somewhere else. To quote The Cluetrain Manifesto
"The Internet routes around boredom". In other words, you
do not have a captive audience on the Internet.
Over a period of time many of these businesses either burned-out
or lost interest. The ones that made their web sites add value
to the business (and not the other way round) stood a good
chance of survival. The ones that made their web sites
interactive and interesting stood an even better chance. Many
are still around today and are in rude health.
Evolution with a twist
The only problem with the gene pool is that there is no
lifeguard
The Internet is undergoing an evolutionary process but with a
very weird, and possibly frightening twist. In normal evolution,
its the evolving creatures that have to adapt to the
environment, not the other way round. The Internet's
evolutionary process started in much the same way but, thirty
five years later is capable of altering its environment to such
an extent, its now part of of your environment and is now
forcing you to evolve. If you doubt my words, read on.
Its a recognised fact that any business without an effective web
presence today is at a serious disadvantage to the ones that
have. And any business without an effective web presence by 2010
is likely to be either dead, dying or irrelevant - unless you
happen to be a high street shop.
How this boom will be different
The early bird might get the worm, but its the second mouse
that gets the cheese
A lot has changed in five years. The technology has gotten
faster and cheaper, more people have fast broadband connections
and investors are regaining their interest in the Internet after
having their fingers burnt the last time.
Something else has happened too. The cost of an effective web
presence has plummeted to such a point where it can be developed
and hosted for a fraction of the original cost. Many of the
tools used for this are "Open Source" and therefore available at
a very low cost.
A problem that became apparent was "visibility", the ability
of
people to find your site via search engines like Google or
Yahoo. With static, non interactive pages this was relatively
easy if you had competent coders, but interactive sites
presented very little content for the search engines to index
denying the owners lots of free traffic and forcing them to
spend vast sums on marketing campaigns.
Those problems are solvable today with SEO (Search Engine
Optimisation) techniques and new scripting languages. With
careful use of these you can have a totally interactive web site
that will have a high visibility at little cost.
An amazing strategy has evolved around some of the more
successful interactive sites. Its a well known fact that to get
a high visibility on the Internet, you need lots of content and
what's the easiest way to get lots of content ? easy - let your
customers write it for you ! And ( here's the really good bit )
you can even charge them for the privilege ! Amazon.com,
eBay.com, SlashDot.org and Ecademy.com do this very well and now
those sites command a large, effective presence on the Internet.
This revolves around the concept of "Communities of Interest"
(COI). People love to interact with each other and if you can
give them the means they will supply you with all the content
you could possibly want.
The second wave
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king
With that said, the scene is set for the next dot-com boom. The
lessons have been learned, burnt fingers have been healed and
the technology is in place. To help everyone "get" the Internet
this time round, here some simple rules :-
1. You do NOT have a captive audience.
2. Bore us at your peril.
3. Your competitors web site is only a mouse click away.
4. We are in a hurry so don't make us jump through hoops.
5. When we write about you, the entire planet can read it - good
or bad.
6. If you feel threatened by the Internet, it just means you are
missing an opportunity or you have something to hide.
7. Answer your emails !!!
8. You do not need to spend vast sums to get an effective web
presence.
A quick glance at some newspapers would give the impression
that the second wave is already here. Will it be like the first
one ? I doubt it very much, too many got their fingers burnt and
will be a lot more careful this time round, many will be gone
for good. What I do believe is that it will be a lot more
sensible and (hopefully), a lot more fun this time - especially
if we can help you.
Peter Blue Director M2MN Consultants www.m2mn.com
References and inspirations
The Cluetrain Manifesto
The End of Business as Usual. This is a long read but worth the
effort.
World of Ends What the
Internet is and how to stop mistaking it for something else.
The other road
ahead This article explains why much of the next generation
of software may be server-based, what that will mean for
programmers, and why this new kind of software is a great
opportunity for start-ups.
About the author:
Pete Blue has been a software developer for many years on
systems like Linux, FreeBSD, Windows, UNIX and even DOS. www.PJBlue.co.uk
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