Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide: Business thinking and strategies behind successful Web 2.0 implementations. | 
 enlarge | Author: Amy Shuen
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Category: Book
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Format: Illustrated
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Pages: 266
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Dimensions (in): 8.6 x 5.9 x 0.9
ISBN: 0596529961
Dewey Decimal Number: 004
EAN: 9780596529963
ASIN: 0596529961
Publication Date: April 17, 2008
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Product Description
Web 2.0 makes headlines, but how does it make money? This concise guide explains what's different about Web 2.0 and how those differences can improve your company's bottom line. Whether you're an executive plotting the next move, a small business owner looking to expand, or an entrepreneur planning a startup, Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide illustrates through real-life examples how businesses, large and small, are creating new opportunities on today's Web. This book is about strategy. Rather than focus on the technology, the examples concentrate on its effect. You will learn that creating a Web 2.0 business, or integrating Web 2.0 strategies with your existing business, means creating places online where people like to come together to share what they think, see, and do. When people come together over the Web, the result can be much more than the sum of the parts. The customers themselves help build the site, as old-fashioned "word of mouth" becomes hypergrowth. Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide demonstrates the power of this new paradigm by examining how: Flickr, a classic user-driven business, created value for itself by helping users create their own value Google made money with a model based on free search, and changed the rules for doing business on the Web-opening opportunities you can take advantage of Social network effects can support a business-ever wonder how FaceBook grew so quickly? Businesses like Amazon tap into the Web as a source of indirect revenue, using creative new approaches to monetize the investments they've made in the Web Written by Amy Shuen, an authority on Silicon Valley business models and innovation economics, Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide explains how to transform yourbusiness by looking at specific practices for integrating Web 2.0 with what you do. If you're executing business strategy and want to know how the Web is changing business, this book is for you.
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Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide - Professor and Speaker Amy Shuen Captures the Essence July 2, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
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 Ecole 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.
 Superb Overview of Web 2.0 June 3, 2008
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
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
Harnessing Social Network Effects May 22, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
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.
Do you want to create a Web 2.0 business, or integrate Web 2.0 strategies with your existing business? May 20, 2008
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
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!
Paradigm Shift About Social Networking May 5, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
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).
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