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Not too long ago a colleague of mine approached me and asked me about my view of Web 2.0. Frankly, I had no idea what he was talking about. My colleague articulated his view of Web 2.0 to me. We had discussed the Web 2.0 Conference as well. My initial reaction was that Web 2.0 was a marketing ploy to encapsulate Internet web development in order to facilitate the raising of investment capital. I have participated in the development of digital switching technology, out-of-band network signaling, cellular roaming, caller ID, call waiting, speed dialing, SMS, Internet portals, mobile positioning technology, and fiber optics transmission. I have found that when you examine most telecom technologies today you will find that it is evolutionary. From out-of-band signaling arose intelligent networking, caller ID, call waiting, and cellular roaming. Mobile positioning is performed using either signal triangulation methods (UTDOA or TDOA) or GPS (Global Positioning System). GPS embodies triangulation as well. The long point I am making is that Web 2.0 is a way of describing the current evolutionary stage of the Internet, its software environment, and its business environment. I have to thank my colleague Greg Theisen for guiding me through the current maze of technological terminology. When I embarked on this Web 2.0 learning experience, I found that there is a Web 2.0 Conference. No I have not attended one. I am a bit skeptical of conferences that are backed by publishing houses, consulting firms, or new trade associations looking for a purpose. However, that does not mean the conference(s) has not been useful. As far as I can tell Web 2.0 has taken on some kind of definitive role in the world of information. I have heard that O'Reilly Media has service marked the term "Web 2.0" for educational conferences/seminars. I don't begrudge O'Reilly Media at all for doing this. If they have a legal right, then be my guest. If you worked for it you should get the credit. The term "Web 2.0" is beginning to evolve beyond a service mark. "Web 2.0" is assuming the status of religion to some and heresy to others. To others Web 2.0 is beginning to encompass everything that is occurring with the Internet. In other words, in the eyes of many, Web 2.0 has become a "catch all", resulting in it achieving the status of "meaninglessness". Some technical professionals may see the term Web 2.0 as meaningless as the term "Triple Play" is to me. According to Wikipedia, the term Web 2.0 refers to a second generation of services available on the so-called World Wide Web, which allows people to collaborate and share information online. When I first read this definition I decided that the term Web 2.0 was in danger of becoming meaningless. In contrast to the first generation, lets call it Web 1.0, Web 2.0 gives users an experience that is interactive in nature. Web 1.0 web pages were interactive to a point. In other words you could point and click to enter another page. However, today's Web 2.0 is an interactive experience that enables the user to interact with static icons and animated pictures. In a Web 2.0 environment, the ISP and the web page owner are collecting user metric information regarding the sites visited. Call this metric information, the new demographic data collection. The Web 2.0 environment has much more going on in front of the user and in the background while the user is working than did its predecessor. Another way of understanding Web 2.0 is by creating a list of web technologies (circa 2000) and compare that with current web technologies. You come up with the following: Web 1.0 Technologies Web 2.0 Technologies Banner Ads - non interactive Intelligent ad placement Centralized servers Distributed intelligence; collective intelligence of users Centralized encyclopedias and dictionaries User online encyclopedia based on the notion that an entry can be added by any web user, and edited by any other user. This assumes the following concept - the more participation the greater the likelihood the truth will bear out. Personal websites Blogging Personal websites - still pictures Mobile Video Sharing Web page views Cost per click throughs - a great way of generating income from the most common action of a web user, also enables the provider to track the user's web page viewing. Web page views Online intelligence gathering. Effectively tracking all web pages the user views, the length of time the user spends on each page, effectively gathering information about what the user is doing online., etc. Classifying technology in nice neat packages is useful for investors. The term Web 2.0 immediately gives the impression of the next new thing. As an engineer I understand that technology evolves. I hate packaging technology with phrases like "Next Generation" because it is misleading and frankly makes me ill. Technology is always evolving and it is difficult to say when a particular stage stops and the next begins. The term is not meant for engineers. The term may be considered a "marketing" term but the reality is that the people who control the money like it because it enables them to understand the evolution of the web. Technology often evolves in stages and slowly. The Web 2.0 designation is helpful to business people. I don't believe the financial markets are where they were in the late 1990s. In other words, the investment banker and venture capitalist, for now, have little desire to speculate on technology. Unfortunately this is the wrong time to feel this way. When Internet investments were wildly growing in the late 1990s there was no compelling content to view or listen to. Business models did not exist to support video or music downloads back in the late 1990s. Bottom line, investors got greedy and invested in telecom and Internet companies without thinking through the consequences or even understanding the businesses they were investing in. I spent the first half of this current decade cleaning up after these investors in a few dozen bankruptcies. When I reviewed the business plans of some of the shining stars of the late 1990s I was amazed at how much money was thrown at companies that never had a chance of succeeding. Today I am amazed at comments like, "I learned from my mistakes with the Internet boom", "it has yet to be proven there is a market for mobile video or music", "I never needed a cell phone when I was a teenager", "When my kids (today they are 40 years old) were teenagers they did not need a cell phone", "Who wants to download music off of the Internet?", "Why would I want to use GPS in my car, I can read a map?", etc.. My favorite to date was said by a man my age: "I prefer to watch my entertainment on a wide screen TV and in my easy chair. The only people who would want to watch this stuff are kids younger then me." My comment to this person was: "Hey guess what that is who the content companies want to sell to". Yes, I still hear these comments, even today, despite the fact that the Internet has evolved into a focal point for converged media (telecom services, video, music, entertainment). Investment bankers and VCs have become so cautious that what is obvious to you and I, is not obvious to them. What the Web 2.0 movement has highlighted is that someone out there in the world understands the need to differentiate today's Internet and telecom environment from yesterday's environment. This may be completely unintentional. Of course the goal may be financial in nature. Frankly, I don't care if O'Reilly Media wants to service mark the term for conference purposes. The industry conversation about the use of the term has drawn needed attention to it from an investment community that tends to make decisions using simple financial tools and sound bites. The differentiation enables the industry to create better products and services while simultaneously helping investors to understand the marketplace. I find that words, if used properly, help to focus people's thoughts and creative energies. Today's information environment has digital video, music, terminal devices to play video and music, and a marketplace that is willing to spend money on new gadgets today. All of this content can be found on cellular (wireless) networks, wireline telephone networks (IP TV), the Internet, cable television networks, and satellite. Great thing about all of this is that as a consumer all of this content looks fairly similar to the consumer; despite the network it is seen on. Hence to the consumer the network becomes less important than the content. What I have described is the kind of combined telecom services and content technology and business model existing wireline and wireless carriers, new Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs - just another way of saying wireless reseller), and online IPTV companies are working to execute. The new revenue model will likely be dominated by advertising revenue with revenue generated by enterprise services. This represents the type of convergence the telecom industry had discussed and hoped for during the early 1990s. In my book "Telecommunications Internetworking", I called this diminishing distinction between services and carriers, "convergence". That was the buzz word in the early to mid-1990s. Hey I have a great catch phrase: "Converged Media" or "Converged Services". Nope won't work - neither phrase sound very sexy. The phrases are more accurate than Web 2.0, but not as sexy. The nearly religious debate on whether or not Web 2.0 is a legitimate term is beginning to border on ridiculous. Enough move on. Investors like things packaged in nice easy to understand language and analogies. Suck it up and Deal with it. Technology professionals should use this as an opportunity to highlight your ideas. I am going to stick with "Converged Media" and "Converged Services". Next article is going to focus on video's role (mobile and non-mobile) in this new stage of the Internet. Video will play a role in telecom services and entertainment; and it will become staple service. P.J. Louis Any questions or comments send to: PJLouis@gmail.com P.J. Louis - Bio A well-respected and seasoned executive, P.J. Louis has 28 years of experience leading companies in the nuclear power, financial, media, Internet, and telecommunications industries. Mr. Louis is currently Managing Director for Avondale Ventures. Avondale invests in telecommunications and media business opportunities. Mr. Louis currently sits on the boards of LF Productions and Titan Motion Pictures Group. He provides due diligence, management consulting, and business development consulting services in a number of domestic and international industries. He is currently focused on infrastructure, media, and telecommunications (wireless and wireline) initiatives. Mr. Louis was an advisor to Weiser LLP, a U.S. financial advisory services firm. Mr. Louis supported the telecommunications practice in the areas of mergers & acquisitions and corporate restructuring. He had supported the due diligence and acquisition of telecommunications companies, such as Adelphia Communications, Proxim Communications, Comdial Communications, and Universal Access. Mr. Louis was Managing Director for PricewaterhouseCoopers' Telecom & Technology Restructuring Practice. He was also Managing Director for FTI Financial Consulting's Telecom Restructuring Practice. Between 2001 and 2005, he served as an advisor in dozens of different restructurings. Mr. Louis specialized in business recovery services for financially troubled and underperforming telecommunications and technology companies. Mr. Louis was Chief Financial Officer for Fun Little Movies (FLM), a Hollywood-based filmmaking studio, which creates funny short films for the mobile media space. FLM's clients included Sprint PCS, Microsoft, and Smart Video. Between 1997 and 2001, Mr. Louis was Vice President of Marketing and Product Management for TruePosition Wireless Location, Inc.; a holding of Liberty Media. He had been responsible for establishing, leading, and maintaining the Company's carrier relations, sales, sales technical support, product management, and marketing communications programs. Between 1996 and 1997, Mr. Louis was Director for Technology for NextWave Wireless, a nationwide cellular carrier. Mr. Louis was responsible for technology evaluation and network planning. In the early 1990s, Mr. Louis was Managing Senior Engineer for Bell Communications Research's wireless and wireline technologies group. Mr. Louis was the laboratory's subject matter expert for network signaling. Mr. Louis participated in the creation of the United States' first wireless roaming standard and the original CDMA, TDMA, and GSM wireless signaling standards. Mr. Louis had been an active participant in the creation of wireless telecommunications standards having served for 6 years as a chairperson on over half a dozen committees within the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA). In the 1980s, Mr. Louis was Chief of Staff for Network Engineering for NYNEX Corporation (today known as Verizon Communications). He had corporate-wide responsibility for the planning and deployment of new telecommunications technology. In the 1970s and early 1980s, Mr. Louis was an electrical engineer and licensing engineer in a New York City based engineering firm. Mr. Louis was the licensing engineer for New York City's first synthetic natural gas generating facility. Mr. Louis was also Lead Engineer for Stone & Webster's nuclear emergency response task force. His specialty was command, control, and communications disaster scenarios. Mr. Louis is the author of seven telecommunications technical-business books; "Telecommunications Internetworking: Delivering Services Across The Networks"; published in 2000 by McGraw-Hill, "M-Commerce Crash Course", published in February 2001 by McGraw-Hill, "Broadband Crash Course", published in September 2001 by McGraw-Hill, "Telecom Management Crash Course", published in June 2002 by McGraw-Hill, "The Financial Handbook for Technologists", published in September 2004 by Mind Commerce, "The Network Manager's Reference Guide" published in February 2005 by Mind Commerce, and "The Definitive Guide To Wireless 9-1-1 - 2005" published in August 2005 by Mind Commerce. Mr. Louis was a member of the editorial advisory board for "Cellular Integration" magazine. He is a senior member and was an officer of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Communications Society New York Section. Mr. Louis has a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University (NY) and a Masters of Science degree in Technology Management from Polytechnic University (NY). Mr. Louis has begun work on "The Telecommunications and Media Technology Handbook" for Mind Commerce. The views and opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the views of MobileIN.com. You are encouraged to seek the advice of health professional concerning these matters of great importance.
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