Customer Reviews

Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide: Business thinking and strategies behind successful Web 2.0 implementations

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I found this book mildly irritating, until I realized that it was in fact perfect for what it sets out to be, an introduction of Web 2.0 concepts for those who know nothing about the Web, i.e. executives who still dictate memoranda, still budget for print advertising, etcetera. O'Reilly has a superb model for leveraging conferences and publishing books, but O'Reilly should have known better than to publish this book in 2008 without reference to Web 3.0. Wikipedia has a fine overview of Web 3.0, start there, I have put the URL in the comment below.

I found the book bland and disappointing, and found--when discussing Amazon, for example, the book reads more like an advertisement and has no clue on all the stuff Amazon is not doing (see the comment for two URLs), such as microtext for micro-cash, creating global intelligence councils on poverty and every other topic using top authors, and creating local citizen intelligence minutemen who can do real-time observation in the context of Amazon's excellent S3 cloud, which is in my view operating at less than 10% of its potential because Bezos has two things on his mind: outerspace and Kindle.

The end notes and the bibliography are the best part of the book. The index stinks. 7 pages for a 214 page book, should have been at least 14--it was an afterthought and done badly.

Better books on Web 2.0 and Generation 2.0 include:
Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies
Mobilizing Generation 2.0: A Practical Guide to Using Web2.0 Technologies to Recruit, Organize and Engage Youth
Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations
Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything

Better books on the larger scheme of things:
Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
New World New Mind Changing the Way We
Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge
The Future of the Internet--And How to Stop It
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

A desperate miasma of buzzwords pervades the entire book. The best part of the book is its list of references, but here again, as with the rest of the book, quantity trumps quality. The really good references are buried among the more than 280 references.

Sample this profligate plethora of acronyms and hypewords: Long tail. Network effects. Collaborative innovation. Web to wealth. Freemium. Collective user value. Leapfrog link. Competence syndication. Competence capitalization. Online recombinant innovation.

Rambling paragraphs interspersed with 'back-of-the-napkin' style charts, authoritative-looking links, economic terms interspersed with catchphrases are thrown in, and then on to the next topic. Scoot and shoot. Rinse and repeat.

What is most disappointing is that firstly, the topic of Web 2.0 is much, much more engrossing, exciting, and fascinating than the book suggests, and secondly, the author may in fact be capable of writing a book that does her and the topic justice.

Web 2.0 - the moniker given to the combination of technology enabled rich internet applications, collaborative user experiences like wikis, folksonomies, and more - has changed the way most people experience and expect the web to be. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Wikipedia, YouTube, blogs are all examples of Web 2.0 based companies.

What is less clear is whether Web 2.0, despite all its newness, hype, and substance, is only an incremental step in the path of the continual evolution of the web, or whether it represents a substantially, and fundamentally, different way of doing business and interacting on the internet.

This book is an attempt to try and make sense of Web 2.0. The book is short enough that it can be read in a couple of hours, is written for the average user and does not get into technical details or intimidating equations at any point. It has a very long list of references, which do add a lot of value to the book.

HOWEVER...
Upon reading the book, you are faced with a constant barrage of disappointment, irritation, and finally a feeling of having wasted a good two hours of your time.

Tim O'Reilly has written the Foreword, and the best he has to say about the book is that (added stars mine) "It's the first book that really does justice to **my** ideas". The author makes sure to reciprocate in kind, thanking O'Reilly 'for championing this project and seeing **its breakthrough potential**'.

The purpose of the book seems to be to equip the reader with an arsenal of buzzwords. It is not what you know, but what you can pretend to know.

Sample these snippets:
-- "Second, even recent M.B.A.s have a hard time pulling together all the necessary pieces of the Web 2.0 business model" - many a Web 1.0 company went down the tube because of MBAs pretending to know how to run technology startups.
-- "...how a shift as small as XML separating content from form..." - XML and XHTML were small shifts???? The author is either trying to be cute, or has a zero understanding of the importance of this shift.
-- "Web 2.0 companies have figured out a profitable path to growth" - really???? No evidence cited, no names, no revenue or financial statements. Just the evidence of an opinion is offered.
-- And finally, sample this: "You will learn about how to make money by monetizing the network effects..." - all in two hours of lightweight reading.

Assertions are made throughout the book, but without much by way of explanation, reasoning, or substantiation. Take the example of Flickr, which is the first Web 2.0 company described in some detail in the first chapter itself:
-- Flickr's business model is described as "freemium", but no details or numbers.
-- In the section on 'Calcuating Company Value', there is utter confusion: a number of $20 per user over a 3-5 year period for Flickr is arrived at by estimating the price that Yahoo paid to acquire Flickr in 2005. But that is distinct from how much real money was actually coming into the company. Valuation is NOT the same as revenue - a point painfully lost on the author. Look at it this way: Google has a valuation of $100+ billion. But it does NOT make $100b in revenues, or profits, or cash flow. This 'method' of valuation is no different than what was practiced during the Web 1.0 dot-com bubble. What exactly is Web 2.0-ish about this valuation?
And before the discussion on valuation can get complicated, the focus quickly shifts to Netflix. Scoot and shoot.

The chapter on network effects is an improvement, with a short but reasonably acceptable description of network effects and the marginal/average/total cost function.
But here again, what is not explained is why the classic aggregate adoption 'S-curve' should be labeled differently for Web 2.0, nor why the product adoption bell curve should have a closed chasm (Geoffrey Moore - Crossing the Chasm) in the world of Web 2.0, except by stating that "free viral closes the gap". How does "free viral" close the gap? No explanation. Shoot and scoot.

There is further confusion when the author states in the paragraph titled "Avoiding the chasm" that "Product cost is a classic adoption barrier" - Moore certainly did NOT list cost as a major adoption barrier.

Chapter 3, "People Build Consensus" covers social networking, specifically Facebook and LinkedIn - two companies targeting different, but slightly overlapping parts of the social network demographic spectrum. The description of the 'six degrees' effect is described well enough. Other very pertinent and useful concepts and theories are mentioned, like 'Diffusion of Innovation' and the 'Bass model'.

What is, again, irritating is the needless repetition of sentences. "By mid-2005, requests for introductions had reached 25,000, and acceptance rates had increased slightly to 87%.", and in the very next section, the same is repeated, almost ad verbatim, "In mid-2005, LinkedIn announced that monthly requests were 25,000 and acceptance rates were at 87%." Why? Why?? Why??! Wouldn't the reader remember what he had read just a paragraph or two back?
How exactly does "frequent interaction builds community, trust..."? Take the author's word.

Save your money for something actually useful.

I was lucky enough to receive an advanced copy of this wonderful book. I normally don't set aside current books to dive into a new one, but this is a book that I've been waiting on for a long time and I was eager to jump right in -- and what a treat it turned out to be!

If you aren't a techie, Web 2.0 probably doesn't mean much to you. You might think it is just the "next version" of the Internet or just a new way of doing things online -- such as blogging, video, etc. In this the book the author shows you that Web 2.0 is so much more than the "what" -- it's actually mostly about the "how".

How can a business -- be it IBM or your one-man home-based operation -- benefit from new advances and developments online? How can you change your way of thinking about business to take advantage of the power of communities that are popping up all over the Internet? How can you learn from others, such as Amazon and Flickr, who made major changes to their business models and discovered new ways of doing business?

If you want another book on geek tech, then this book isn't for you. If you own your own business, or are just merely an employee looking for innovative ways of getting things done, this book is for you. I have no doubt that there will be people who read this book who will have an "Aha!" moment and transform the Internet even more. I learned so much from this book that it is difficult to just pick one or two main points to focus on.

When you are done with this book you'll understand how revolutions and evolutions on the Internet have changed the way we do business -- from online to offline. You'll also better understand how social networks play such a crucial role in everyday life and how they are turning traditional business models on their head.

You owe it to yourself to read this book -- your take on business will never be the same afterwards.

Web 2.0 (the book) does a great job to bridge the gap about how valuable social networking and collective intelligence is. This book is a great explanation of how Web 2.0 can be an economic success instead of the common question "How can a social networking site make money". The author explains very well how the business model works in comparison to traditional web commerce. If you need to connect the dots why Web 2.0 works, then this is a great book.

On a side note, I noticed that the author gets away from explaining why sites like YouTube work (maybe because the author cannot provide strong reasons of an economic model other than Google keeping it's relevance by owning traffic).

Relying on case studies ranging from Flickr and Facebook to Netflix and LinkedIn, "Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide" provides entrepreneurs, corporations and business administration students equally with a resource to make sense of the business side of all things Web 2.0.

The book doesn't go into technicalities or spend time on design matters as they typically appear in Web 2.0 applications today: as a matter of fact, it abstracts itself from look and feel of the sites analyzed, focusing on how the different sites make money.

The result is a five step action plan that starts with building on collective user value (users no longer are mere consumers of content, but rather active contributors and creators); activating network effects (seeking the ways in which a business can leverage the multiple connections between the layers, places and groups and how they can grow your offering); working through social networks (the fundamental building block of the Web 2.0 economy); dynamically syndicating competence (picking your battles and doing what you do best faster, making it accessible to more people); and recombining innovations (looking for ways to connect the online with the offline, the new with the old).

The result is a book that is highly recommended if you are looking to take your business to the next level of the social web: a place where being social is not merely an option but a requirement.

I think this is a very good book. It is not a book of buzzwords and hype. Its chapters lead with theory, go to detail, end with lists of lessons learned, and finally provide a list of questions and answers (Q&A). There are the following six chapters included:

1. Users create value
2. Networks multiply effects
3. People build connections
4. Companies capitalize competences
5. New recombines with old
6. Businesses incorporate strategies

In the Q&A sections there are both strategic questions and tactical questions to help the reader get a better handle on how Web 2.0 allows entrepreneurs to make more money by targeting a smaller market that seeks hard-to-find products and services instead of large volumes of popular items. Apparently Web 2.0 is all about "the niche." And it is all about networking with other sellers and the customers.

This book points out that Web 2.0 is about creating multiple streams of revenues as opposed to single streams. Instead of just generating sales of a product or service, Web 2.0 thinking and logic demands that the Web site owner consider generating membership fees, advertising fees, licensing fees, sponsorship fees, and yes, sales of product and services of their own or through affiliate relationships.

The five-step action plan included in this book includes the following steps:

>>Build on collective user value
>>Activate network effects
>>Work though social networks
>>Dynamically syndicate competence
>>Recombine innovations.

If the above list does not make sense to you, then I highly recommend you read this book. It will after reading the chapters. Do you want to create a Web 2.0 business, or integrate Web 2.0 strategies with your existing business? If so, then you'll be creating places online where people like to come together and share what they think, see, and do.

Four large and popular companies are used as examples of leaders in using Web 2.0 in their business models: Google, Flickr, Facebook, and Amazon. I think we all know a lot, or at least something, about each of these companies. So their use in this book was excellent in my humble opinion.

This book is only 172 pages long until it gets to the endnotes and bibliography. Maybe it is kind of short? But I won't hold that against it. There is much good content between its covers. And the bibliography was quite impressive. It spanned from pages 215-235 and was packed with tons of great books and articles for the reader to seek out and read. 5 stars!

Since I work in the technical side of web development, I somehow expected this book to be more about the technical attributes of this new phenomenon called Web 2.0. I was ready to read about AJAX and similar recent technical innovations and their effect on using the Internet to more successfully conduct business. Instead, the author, Amy Shuen, clearly states that this book is about strategy, rather than a focus on technology. The word "strategy" is in the book's title!
The book indeed focuses on marketing strategy. Ms Shuen demonstrates through real-life examples how various companies are creating new opportunities for success through Web 2.0 business models. She delves into the workings of Flickr, Google, Facebook, and Amazon to demonstrate how the underlying principles she has identified as Web 2.0 processes have been applied to drive each company to growth and profitability. Using Web 2.0 strategy, a company can start by offering a free service, such as a free search capability (Google) or a place to store, organize, access, and share personal photos (Flickr). The next step is then to reach a critical mass of active uploaders or users of the service to create powerful cross-network and social network effects. These network effects then can be mined for advertising and targeted pay-per-click marketing. Who would have thought a great free search web site could make billions of dollars per year!
There is still some amount of disagreement about just what Web 2.0 means, with some people labeling it as a meaningless marketing buzzword, and others accepting it as the new conventional wisdom. Tim Berners-Lee, the creator and architect of the web, in fact, has some really big doubts that Web 2.0 is different from Web 1.0 at all. On the other side, Tim O'Reilly, whose Web 2.0 conferences gave the name to the phenomenon, gives the following examples of Web 1.0 versus corresponding Web 2.0 entities:
Double Click versus Google AdSense; Ofoto versus Flickr; Akamai versus BitTorrent; [...] versus Napster; Britannica Online versus Wikepedia; personal websites versus blogging; page views versus cost per click; screen scraping versus web services; publishing versus participation; content management systems versus wikis; directories (taxonomy) versus tagging ("folksonomy"); stickiness versus syndication.
The above comparisons did provide me some sense of differentiation between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 properties; perhaps it might also enlighten some readers of this book.
In Chapter 6, the author presents her list of five steps to successful Web 2.0 implementation. She states that a key ingredient of many Web 2.0 projects is their ability to collect information from users and then share it in a form that people are willing to pay for. Determining how to build this collective user value is the difficult but essential first step. Another huge step is how to use the created network effects to achieve a successful and continuous revenue stream. This chapter, as well as the entire book, consists of guidelines and suggestions, of course, not clearly delineated steps to successful Web 2.0 implementation.
I would recommend this book both to the entrepreneur and business type person and to the "techie" person. I learned many things about Web 2.0 companies, the power of collaboration and social networking, and marketing strategies. The author's "End Notes" section of the book was also a great source of information and explanations about the whole subject of Web 2.0 terms.

I had the opportunity to hear the author speak and present several examples from the book, which enticed me to buy and read this book.

Its a great book because
1) It uses specific, current web 2.0 business examples
2) It shows lots of diagrams and interface design examples
3) It uses data and frameworks for decision making and strategy
4) It gives solid definitions to buzzwords that seem to float in different interpretations on the blogosphere...

Surprisingly, I have not seen any other books like this given the state of the internet and web 2.0.

One thing that would useful in the future is comparison of "Negative Case Studies" in the sense that specific reasons and actions led to failure....

In Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide, author Amy Shuen demonstrates subject mastery from the first sentence. Steeped in her topic (she's taught it at Wharton, Haas School of Business, CEIBS and École Polytechnique), the reader gets detailed information on the meaning of Web 2.0. This isn't a book filled with hype -it provides theory, thoughtful detail and is practical. Chapters end with strategic and tactical questions. The illustrations and screen captures provide depth and clarity. Companies like Flickr, LinkedIn, and Facebook are used as case studies.

In the first chapter, Users Create Value, she tags Flickr as the poster child for freemium-based businesses. Shuen points out that this model was first developed in 2006-and that low marketing, investment and distribution costs allow revenue streams to cover costs quickly. She's ahead of another book on the topic that's expected at the end of 2008 -Free by Wired's Chris Anderson.

There's a great discussion on mash-ups in Chapter Four, Companies Capitalize Competencies. The final chapter of the book, Businesses Incorporate Strategies, contains Shuen's Five Steps to Web 2.0-thought-provoking reading for anyone in business. You'll have to read the book to fully understand her rationale, but here are the steps as she sees them:

+Build on collective user value
+Activate network effects
+Work through social networks
+Dynamically syndicate competence
+Build a Web 2.0 business plan

The publisher, O'Reilly, distributes Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide under their Safari imprint. This means that there is an online version of the book for quick access that allows a reader to put the material to work almost immediately. Other publishers should follow O'Reilly's lead--their organization clearly embraces multiple ways to provide value to readers.

I recommend this book for tech neophytes who know that they need to learn more about Web 2.0, and for seasoned experts who want to gain exposure to a rich set of cases-along with questions that will compel them to dig deeper on the topic.

I was looking forward to reading this book, but this one is, in my opinion, far below what I normally get when I buy an O'Reilly.

The first time the bad structure of the book's content and logical arguments started to bother me was when Dr. Shuen is explaining that Flickr! had four choices regarding its revenue stream: 1) single stream - one product, 2) multiple streams - several different products, 3) interdependent revenue streams, 4) loss leader - one product actually costing more than it earns but driving additional revenue of other products.

In my opinion, these are not four choices on the same level, but only two: a) single stream, b) multiple streams. And if you choose b), then you have b1) separate streams, b2) interdependent streams. And if you choose b2), you can have b2.1) interdependent streams where all products are profitable, or b2.2) interdependent streams that can afford one or several products making losses because of the additional revenue they generate for other products. There would be even more "choices" (if they should be so called), but here I mention only those Dr. Shuen hints at.

Why explain this little point in detail? Because this really simple example stresses why I really dislike the book: Writing something down in bullet points and explaining causes with their respective effects and above all stating strategic choices is something entirely different, though most certainly not something you can find in this book.

As another example, six ways Flickr! generated revenue from user interactions are enumerated, and three of four of them are actually the same way: Users upload content and do what would be a traditional company's work of enriching content with meta-information. This can now be exploited for search, building groups, and so on. Telling the reader something has six ways of making money when it's actually more like two or three is just not solid business thinking, as far as I am concerned.


It goes on like this as far as I have read (the first few chapters). How can I trust the big points, Dr. Shuen makes, when I believe she has not been careful enough to take care of the logic of the small points?

So, I use the book as a reference for quotes and a few links to original articles on the web which Dr. Shuen gathered.

Thanks for that, but the rest is just unstructured thinking, in my opinion.