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Web 2.0 - Ignore At Your Peril
By Mike Mindel | September 16, 2007
This post summarizes Ed Dale’s latest web 2.0 videos on the Thirty Day Challenge blog (with a little sprinkling of Mindel).
A Worrying Trend
I’ve noticed a worrying trend amongst fellow marketers. They are dismissive of web 2.0 and this will hurt them in the long run.
Let’s take Facebook as an example.
The Facebook statistics are extraordinary. Here are some of the July statistics:
- More than 31 million regular users (use the system at least once a month)
- Half those users (15 million) login at least twice a day
- More than 100,000 new registrations per day since January 2007
- An average of 3 percent weekly growth since January 2007
According to Adonomics, as of 16th September 2008 the Top Friends Facebook application has had 15,498,329 installations! That’s a lot of eyeballs.
So why is Facebook important to us? To answer that question we need to go back in time. Cue nausea inducing spirals and flashing lights. Wooh - wooh -
Today the Internet is Like DOS
You need to understand that the internet is like DOS when Windows came along. When people wrote for DOS there was no mouse to click on things. You had to type in your command line. Run excel, run word do get something to start.
Think back to the early days of computing (Sinclair ZX80 anyone?). In the old days you had to program the game for 4 hrs before you could play the thing. It was tough.
Then operating systems like Windows made it much easier to interact with the computer. The underlying technology hasn’t changed but the interface has changed to make the computers easier to use.
The New Internet Operating System
People were saying DOS was brilliant and people looked at windows and said it was face candy. People who used DOS hadn’t planned for Windows and using a mouse and pointer. They said Windows can’t do anything else that was different. In the technical sense they were right but Windows changed the world. It opened up computing to an enormous number of people and made computing the experience is doing today.
Facebook in particular and other sites like it (e.g. MySpace) are becoming the new defacto operating systems of the internet.
The Starbucks Straw Poll
Go to Starbucks and look at what people look at on their wifi laptops. My straw poll sees that half of them are on Facebook. You know why? It’s because internet marketing and spamming have combined to make the internet an unsafe place. Internet users are sick of being offered things to lengthen their member.
A Safe Haven
Seth Godin has shown the increasing ineffectiveness of interruption media and the death of the TV industrial complex. Internet marketers have driven people to protective communities because they’re so sick of interruption based marketing.
Facebook offers a safe place to use the internet. People in this protected environment feel comfortable there; they are bringing the internet to them. Like people using windows don’t have to leave windows and get into assembly code or command line; so Facebook users don’t have to leave Facebook to use that horrible unsafe place known as the internet.
Facebook is Hard to Spam
One of the reasons Facebook is so cool is that it is so hard to spam. And hooray for that! I’ve heard people use throwaway lines like ’spammers have got into web 2.0′. It’s nothing like the havoc they can wreak on email or through web sites or adsense and black hat strategies. But Facebook in particular is not as susceptible to them. Similar to the Mac operating system and viruses.
It’s Not About Markets - It’s About the Individual
In 2008 it will be all about character based marketing. Your niche has to have a persona and that persona is an individual like me or you. I don’t think my fellow internet marketers have got their head around this yet.
Web 2.0 technologies are not about markets but people. You’re going to need to develop a persona for each market you are in; either yourself or a character that represents you in that marketplace. This character will need to integrate into that community you are trying to market to. This will take time and it will take quality content. But the rewards will be enormous.
A lot of internet marketing is about quick fix, simple this, easy that. Web 2.0 is not that. It can deliver amazing traffic but there’s a lot to it.
Web 2.0 Is a Medium - Long Term Strategy
Everything about web 2.0 is medium term and long term strategy. As Stephen Covey would say it is about seasonality and the law of the farm. You can’t plant something on Monday and expect it to be a fruit on Tuesday. Sometimes it happens but you can’t expect it.
The only thing that endures over time is the law of the farm: I must prepare the ground, put in the seed, cultivate, weed, water and nurture growth. So also in a business or a marriage there is no quick fix where you can just move in and magically make everything right with a positive mental attitude and a package of success formulas. -Stephen R. Covey
Untargeted Traffic? Hogwash
Another criticism is that web 2.0 traffic is untargeted. The visitors don’t do anything. They’re just flickers. But flickers are our target market. If we can’t market to those flickers then we’ve got an issue.
A lot of people are saying web 2.0 is not targeted traffic. That’s wrong. Stumble Upon, Digg, YouTube can be as targeted as a laser click pay per click campaign. We showed one strategy through the thirty day challenge. People were getting great click throughs. It’s how you use it.
The Mobile Movement
I’m using my mobile phone (Treo) to access everything. Broadband isn’t very good in Australia. But mobile broadband is great. What’s more, web 2.0 applications like Facebook and Twitter are custom made for the mobile.
If you look at products like the iPod touch and the new breed of smart phones you can that a lot of people are going to access the internet through these new phones. Facebook works magnificently through the mobile.
Now Take Action
Sign yourself up for an account at Facebook and get a feel for the environment and its applications. It will pay dividends later.
-Ed
Technorati Tags: web 2.0, ignore at your peril, a worrying trend, facebook, facebook statistics, 31 million regular users, straw poll, starbucks, a safe haven, seth godin, interruption media, hard to spam, the individual, not about markets, character based marketing, long term strategy, the mobile movement, internet is like dos, new internet operating system
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September 16th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Mike - thank you very much for your continuing efforts
September 16th, 2007 at 9:22 pm
I am very greatfull for the summary’s you are providing I hope every one values the contribution you are providing,,,This is just worth heaps
Thanking you for availing your time for everything.
September 17th, 2007 at 2:47 am
I thought you was just summarizing the notes for 30DC. When I see this summary, I am thrilled.
This benefits me huge because I am deaf. There is no transcript or subtitle.
You give people more than what they expected when they found this.
Way to go!
September 17th, 2007 at 11:30 am
I was. Then I started listening to Ed’s latest content. Then I started typing. And well. There ya have it.
:-)
-Mike
September 17th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
Hi Mike
Great to have some Daily Mindel, as Kelly Challenge would say! Thanks a lot and very much appreciated.
Cat
September 18th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Great article that I have personally found through BlogRush (what say you now - naysayers?
). I absolutely agree with statement that people tend to stick to old tried and true methods and try to ignore new technology .. I guess in hopes that it “goes away”? Well, web 2.0 is here to stay and Facebook is one of the great examples …
Thanks for the article
September 18th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
Mike thank you for your contributions to the 30 day challenge. They are priceless.
September 18th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Thanks so much for your writeups here Mike, they’re sooooo appreciated. Hate to say it but I just haven’t got time to slough through the videos.
September 19th, 2007 at 1:02 am
Great post. I think most people think that Web2.0 is some magic bullet and it’s great to see “the law of the farm” mentioned.
“You can’t plant something on Monday and expect it to be a fruit on Tuesday.”
Great stuff!
September 19th, 2007 at 6:32 am
Mike,
What a pleasant surprise to find you still creating those wonderful notes. You’ve been a life saver on many occasions.
Thanks a bunch.
Margaret
September 19th, 2007 at 9:06 pm
Terrific article, Mike! I watched the other two videos Ed posted before his (I found the post through BlogRush) and I think you’re 200% right. Those who ignore web 2.0 do so at their own peril. Web 2.0 won’t go away because it is ever-changing and will adapt to whatever the people (individuals) using the web want.
It’s like the difference between broadcast TV and digital cable. Broadcast was TV on a few channels for the masses. Digital cable TV is for the individual, to serve that individual viewer.
Actually, I’m rather happy those other IM gurus don’t get it. It leaves more room for those of us who do get it to establish ourselves on the ground floor as the authorities on the new web. While they’re out dissing web 2.0, we’re working hard building relationships and our persona and will be ripe for the picking as we’re discovered. They’ll be left behind in the dust trying to play catch-up. They will catch up, there’s still plenty of room for them, but only after a hard lesson.
September 20th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
[…] Mike touts Facebook but this is a very good case for using Social Media Marketing (SMM) period. […]
September 22nd, 2007 at 6:26 am
Mike - thanks so much for continuing to summarize the Thirty Day Challenge content (and for sprinkling in some of your own insights as well.) There’s almost always something I miss or just need clarification on - and you always hit the nail on the head for me. Someday - I hope to be able to repay the favor, somehow. Thanks again - take care,
September 22nd, 2007 at 2:43 pm
This is the kind of post/info. that floats my boat! Keeping track of where the internet is headed is always critical. Thanks so much for the insightful comments.
September 22nd, 2007 at 2:50 pm
1. So true.
2. Thanks for sharing.
3. Regards, –OSF.
September 22nd, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Mike
splendid job as usual!
I must have been “flicking” during Eds video, as I missed a lot of that
Did they get Time Tunnel in Australia? Did the whirly go anti clockwise instead?
The more marketeers who ignore web 2.0 the better for us and the universe.
But the Semantic web (as it’s properly called) does not begin and end with Facebook. That is a mere flick thru on the channel hopping that is semantic web.
That’s “SEmantic” Ed! Not as in ROman.
But as I saw on a blog tinyurl.com/3yu69d marketeers are in danger of dissappearng up their own 2.0 a-holes.
October 5th, 2007 at 3:51 am
Mike,
I just had to say thanks so much for your summaries– I am one of those people who truly dislikes watching videos. I can speed read your posts and get all the good stuff in a fraction of the time.
You’ve made the world a better place–thanks to your wonderful summaries! I hope it comes back to you many times over!!
October 17th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
As a first time reader, you got me hooked on to this! Great job with the posts so far and you can be sure you got one guy who’ll keep re-visiting!