Many of Web 2.0’s foundational principles – for example, giving away your primary online product – are counterintuitive. Fortunately, Amy Shuen, a renowned expert on high-tech business models, dispels much of the mystery in her outstanding book. Its bona fides include being issued by the publishing company belonging to Tim O’Reilly, the high-tech guru who helped coin the phrase “Web 2.0.” Shuen covers the social and business effects of Web 2.0, breaks down the Web 2.0 strategies of some of the most successful Internet companies and explains how business of any size can benefit from harnessing Web 2.0’s limitless potential. getAbstract recommends this book to executives who develop strategy, small-business owners who want to expand their operations and entrepreneurs who plan new business ventures.
Web 2.0: A New Way to Do Business
Web 2.0 revolutionizes the business world by offering new ways for “businesses, customers and partners” to interact – often in the most counterintuitive manner possible. Google, for example, gives away its main product: Internet searches. American corporate icon Procter & Gamble gets 35% of its new product ideas from its millions of online contributors, resulting in an 80% success rate, better than double the 30% average for its competition. Another American company, Motorola, has “4,400 blogs, 4,200 wiki pages and 2,600 people” who actively tag online content and create social network bookmarks. Traditional firms can transform themselves via Web 2.0 into innovative online superstars.
Goldcorp’s Crowdsourcing
Consider Goldcorp, a Canadian mining company. Its business, digging gold out of the earth, could hardly be more traditional or “old economy.” In 2000, Goldcorp used Web 2.0 crowdsourcing techniques – “crowds collaborating to solve problems for companies” – to increase its annual gold output nearly tenfold. The company issued “the Goldcorp Challenge,” posting “geological data” online from its Red Lake gold mine. It ...
Comment on this summary or Start Discussion