Am I Famous Now…

… now it’s time for the new media monikers to admit it.

3 Years long the web has been changing. Lately every day faster and faster. A new web, Web2.0 has been promoted. User-content driven. APIs and lots more of wicked widgets, and possibilities and shared codes and more.

People are still promoting it. But the hype is over the battle is over. The battle has been lost.

WEB 2.0 R.I.P.

In those days Web2.0 pioneers are happy and think having won the fight.

It’s been an exciting game so far with the little guy just trouncing all over mainstream media but it looks like that’s about to change.
Chartreuse

There have been many early promoters, pioneers of Web2.0. Actually New Media should admit having lost the fight. MySpace, Netscape, Digg and many others are closing the doors. Trademarts, integrate everything in their own platform aso…
They are wrong. They are doing exactly the same as old media do/did. Building their platform (may I propose portal here?)? Web2.0, user generated content already exists since years. The Usenet was Web2.0. Computer communities were. Actually Web2.0 really started with Google, no I am lying, Usenet really was first. Google had nothing to offer, nothing else than user generated content. All Web2.0 did was bring the user generated content to the main page.

Wait a sec! Communites with their huge forums also relied majorly on their members submitting and writing (mainpage) news stories. You always found links to the latest forum threads on the mainpage. Many computer and gamer communites relied majorly on their members, moderators (nowadays navigators) to publish content, workshops, walkthroughs and more. Regulars scanned other sites to catch a scope for their favorite community. Today we call it social news aggregation.
There was no 1-19-80 rule. We had an administrator (sometimes also referred to as webmaster), sometimes several even, there were some moderators who read (and guided) everything and there where te members submitting the forum threads and answers. It was more 1-6-93.
After a while it became 1-4-15-80. 1% Admins, 4% mods, 15% regulars with little knowledge, enough to keep the activity going, and the first-submitters/readers/lurkers. The rule just was fact. Traffic mainly came over search engines and links in other boards. But we had no Technorati to track links to our sites.

No one got dugg, netscaped, redditted. But good articles would be caught by professional magazines and they would plug your site for it’s content and community. Occasionally even kill your server. If you were really good, in a geek/nerdy manner, you got Slashdotted. And your server surely got killed.
So what about Web2.0? What has changed?
Nothing has changed. The platforms have changed. Portals and newsgroups became blogs. Blogs become networks, blog directories. They become professional networks. Semi-closed networks.
And now MySpace might close the network. And here we encounter a funny detail. 5 Years ago everyone would have done everything to prevent hotlinked images. Services like YouTube and flickr, Photobucket and others heavily rely on allowing hotlinking, offering a service one can use somewhere else. They provide (services) for content. Are those resources? Years ago computer sites always tried to be first offering the newest update of software among their downloads. Resources. Or was that the content for users?
Web2.0 applications grow. Also financially. Big players pay big money to advertize. Or aren’t interested in paying the price. And suddenly the concurrence starts again. Web2.0, friendly atmosphere or soon just competition?

If you look at virtually any Web 2.0 application, whether its YouTube, whether it’s Flickr, whether it’s Photobucket or any of the next-generation Web applications, almost all of them are really driven off the back of MySpace. There’s no reason why we can’t build a parallel business.
Peter Chenin , News Corp.

So MySpace kinda announced that they generate a major part of the traffic of other services like YouTube, Flickr and PhotoBucket. Suddenly they realize the other parties benefit of this. Heavily. So why shouldn’t they close their platform to those third parties and provide the services themselves? Keep the money rolling… but keep it rolling in your camp.

Content is dead.

Content still will be the winner. If only I could find the content. The good content. Where to look for good content? Got it!
Blog networks. May I call them professional platforms mainly relying on their users? The 19%.
Pioneers are happy about Old Media finally joining the new wave. Will they become New Media? I must think about this. NBC NBBC joins the party. iTunes and others offer videos for download today. A blog network directory/collection introduces notes. Notes = Forums?
Big guys ask for help. Several big guys.So did I in my former computer communities. I paid for member written Windows workshops. And I gained the rights on the article. Was I a pioneer? Or have the pioneers just played with new words and an illusion?

Until someone can point me to a genuine difference I’ll stick with : Web2.0 R.I.P.

And work at AIFN3.0(omega). But honestly, I’ld rather be an alpha+. And I’ll proofread tomorrow.

First let’s generate some user-content for the old new media : DiggIt! and NetscapeIt!