David Black

Entries categorized as ‘Neologisms’

O’Reilly reignites Web 2.0 definition discussion

10 December 2006 · Leave a Comment

Just when you thought the “what is web 2.0″ debate had been mercifully quiet for a few months, Tim O’Reilly has had a go at a new, compact definition:

Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform.

He boils the key themes down to: harnessing network effects (to make sites better as more people use them), the perpetual beta (release early and release often), small pieces loosely joined (harness re-use), Christensen’s law of the conservation of attractive profits (competitive advantage moves rather than goes away), and data as the new Intel Inside.

But personally, I like Eric Schmidt’s formulation best: “Don’t fight the internet.”

Categories: Neologisms · Web 2.0

De-portalization: how audience is moving to the long tail

10 December 2006 · 4 Comments

The distribution of traffic between centralised portals and the long tail of smaller sites will flatten out, argues Keith Teare on the Edgio blog. While the top sites will continue to expand, this will be outstripped by the growth of traffic in the long tail of smaller sites – what he calls the “foothills” against the portals’ “mountains”.

Fred Wilson coined the term de-portalization to describe this trend (something of a misnomer so he’s looking for suggested improvements). Fred’s view: “my guess is if you looked at the percent of all pageviews that are generated each month, a much smaller portion exist on the top 10 properties today than in 2000, at the height of the first Internet era”.

Keith argues the top sites need to move beyond a centralised model with services that harness the long tail of traffic and content, and should:

(a) help content find traffic by enabling its distribution. (b) help users find content that is widely dispersed by providing great search. (c) help the publishers in the rising foothills maximize the value of their publications.

A few interesting follow-ups from:

Categories: Long tail · Neologisms