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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
List Price: $24.99
Buy New: $13.99
You Save: $11.00 (44%)
New (38) Used (6) from $13.99
Rating:  21 reviews
Sales Rank: 4398
Format: Illustrated
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 266
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 8.6 x 5.9 x 0.9
ISBN: 0596529961
Dewey Decimal Number: 004
EAN: 9780596529963
ASIN: 0596529961
Publication Date: August 7, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: All orders ship same business day via standard shipping (USPS Media Mail) if received by 1 PM CST.
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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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| Customer Reviews: Read 16 more reviews...
 Desperate Miasma of Buzzwords December 18, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A desperate miasma of buzzwords pervades the entire book. The best part of the book is its list of references, but here again, 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. Fremium. 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 to 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, 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 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 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:
-- "If you feel like .... or that you somehow walked into the middle of the conversation, you're not alone"....
-- "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 MBAs pretendfing to know how to run technology startups.
-- "...how a shift as small as XML separating content from form..." - small???
-- "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 "fremium", 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. In any case, this 'method' of valuation is no different than what was practiced during the Web 1.0 dot-com bubble.
And before the discussion on valuation can get complicated, the focus quickly shifts to Netflix.
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 it 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.
 New business models for the masses December 16, 2008
This book is about the new business models afforded by Web 2.0 technologies.
No longer do big companies publish products (like books, movies, software, songs) for us merely to consume. Now we can all be publishers of digital content. We can pubish books and ebooks using web sites like Lulu and CreateSpace; we can mashup web content from web sites, blogs, and other sources using tools like Yahoo! Pipes and Dapper. We can write our own blogs, and share our photos. Best of all, we can do all this for free!
Of course, big business stills wants to make money. And we as individual producers deserve to be paid for our content too -- if it's good enough. So the challenge is: how do we make it pay? Through advertising? Through subscriptions?
I'm painting a picture here of what this book is about. Not the Web 2.0 technologies per se, but the effect that these technologies have had, and will have, on traditional business models.
Tony Loton, author --
Book Publishing DIY: The Do It Yourself Guide to Self-Publishing using Lulu and CreateSpace
Working with Yahoo! Pipes, No Programming Required
Mashups Made Easy with Dapper: the Data Mapper
Let your customers create value December 16, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book explains how successful Web 2.0 companies do what they do.
Author Amy Shuen says the biggest challenge to a company's success in this area is to convert from an engrained culture of competition to a culture of collaboration.
What's new about Web 2.0, she says, is that both businesses and individuals can make money by providing services to customers for free. How? Web 2.0 allows online users to interact, combine, remix, upload, change, and customize content for themselves. This online DIY self-expression benefits businesses and other users. For example, Flickr bases its photo sharing and storage site on a "freemium" business model.
In the collaborative innovation model, Shuen says, the entire perspective of innovation changes. Consider how Apple's iPod is manufactured. Apple conceives, designs, and oversees the innovation and creativity of many external suppliers, creators, affiliates, and partners to support an innovative product and service.
Shuen's "big three big takeaways" for developing a Web 2.0 business plan:
Online network effects are a powerful multiplying force.
A few active uploaders can create online critical mass and community.
Viral distribution and cooperative advantage can build eco-systems rapidly.
Finally, a real world web 2.0 strategy guide December 7, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Amy Shuen has a firm grip on the long tail. Get your face in this book and don't blink while she takes you on a fascinating journey to the tipping point fueled by the wisdom of crowds. My space on the shelf for this book is empty because her book is always in my hand. I bought several copies of her book as gifts for friends.
Amy Shuen is to the world of Web 2.0 as Ludwig van Beethoven's influence is to the world of music. Her impact on web strategy is comparable to da Vinci's impact on art. She is ahead of her time. Get her book before the ground swell from tribes of new influencers leaves you in a wikinomic downturn.
I have been in the web business since the early 90s. I am a professional technology consultant and thought leader. I have a huge collection of books, papers, & resources related to my industry and Amy's book is my most prized possession. I recommend getting extra copies for you and your colleagues.
One snippet from this book clearly explains how a small strategy adjustment saved a tremendous amount of money for a well known company. Depending on your reach, this tiny snippet can help save you $1,000's - $1,000,000's. I would spend far more than the price of this whole book for this one snippet.
One last flckr of thought. What if your competition already has this book?
Get yours now.
Click on my username and view my profile to access a web page link that contains videos and other resources of Amy presenting some of the information in this amazing book. Please let me know how I can help you.
 Good blend of business, marketing and technology savvy November 6, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Amy Shuen has done a wonderful job with this book. Its ability to blend the business, marketing and technology conversation around Web 2.0 philosophies into a cohesive discussion makes this book worth the read. While I was slightly disappointed that the book didn't spend much time on internal uses for these strategies (which could easily have been added as a seventh chapter), the focus on the value to changing a business was well researched and valuable.
In particular, spending time understanding the various value propositions around Web 2.0 was excellent. From innovation models, to monetization strategies and harnessing the long tail of a potential market, the revenue potential is clearly explored.
One comment that I read from another reader (http://infosysblogs.com/web2/2008/09/thumbs_down_for_web_20_a_strat.html) was that he felt that the language was contrived and not engaging enough. I couldn't disagree more. The book was articulate and readable, especially given the fact that the book covered so many of the dry topics that are often ignored for the sake of hype generating content.
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