Over a decade back, the internet heralded a fundamental shift in the economics of information. And the shift continues with web 2.0 taking shapes in the form of Wikis, Blogs, Virtual Games etc.  

                         Web1.0  >> Web2.0

Britannica Online  >> Wikipedia

PCGames  >>SecondLife

CDNow  >> iTunes

PointCast >> YouTube,BitTorrent                             

Personal Websites >> Blogs,MySpace

These technological shifts have revolutionized the conventional Bricks & Mortar business models. There are a number of spectacular examples of totally new companies that have come from nowhere and have scored huge successes – YouTube, MySpace, Blogger, Wikipedia etc which are forming the contours of Web 2.0. At the same time, some large organizations were merely scratching their heads asking “What happened there?” But there were some organizations which were prompt to act to this shift. They understood that internet is not a toy for technologists but a new channel for distributing products and services of different types. So they ventured in and the result is that major “Bricks & Mortar” business models have some kind of a presence in the web.     

By now, I guess most of you have understood the crux of the article. But one major difference between these two versions (i.e. Web 1.0 & Web 2.0), is the involvement of the customers which forms the DISTINCT DIFFERENCE.

If technology allows new communities to emerge (i.e. Orkut.com; myspace.com etc), then we can do more with the power of “e” (referring to internet). We can design products, sell the products, diffuse information about the products, help each other to use the product or even fix bugs (if necessary). One of the interesting aspects of web browser is not its extendibility but its applicability and I will try to extend my limited source of information & knowledge to clear it up a bit. The next disruptive innovation (if it is not a bold statement to make) will probably come with the use of 3-D space as a browsing platform. With bandwidth augmentation, increasing computing power, rapidly improving technologies it is possible to create a 3-D environment (I am not getting into the nitty-gritty of it as it beyond the scope of this article). E.g. Try out a shirt off a virtual shelf and look at yourself in a virtual mirror before buying it. Won’t it be interesting? A 3-D environment can radically change how things are bought and sold. 

Still the million dollar question remains - Is it time for transformation? Transformation from real to virtual world and back.

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