Floozy Speak!

Ya ever notice that whenever a new trend appears people come outa the woodwork to help define it, set rules around it and then of course become the oracle of it.  I’ve noticed these blog bits about the 10 rules of web2.0.  I like rules, i mean, its like a top ten list of this is what matters right?  Some are blanatly obvious to me.  In fact most are just observations thrown back at you.

Signal to Noise via the 37 signals, has lots of lists.  What the web 2.0 is, what it isn’t, it makes for fun content i suppose.  Its like it could be x, or y, or z but never a unless you mean c, which case then a is ok but add z and y and x!  Ahh the dance of the lists! 

There’s also this mentality that its like a big band wagon!  GET ON board with web 2.0 today!  Slap a “i like tags” bummer sticker on yer car and join the revolution!  GET a back stage pass into the world of web 2.0 by humming these three lyrics over and over! 

Let’s look at a top ten rule list for web 2.0, what’s it really mean…

1. Solve the smallest possible problem (that is still big enough to matter) for the user and know exactly what problem you're trying to solve. What this means is focus.  That’s it.  Focus on getting something done that matters.

2. Get a responsive and chatty audience using the product. Ahhh i see, how to get people to use it.  We’re talkin about infection.  People use, people talk.  I suppose you could read this as “get exstacy users to use yer product…or weed really.. weed makes me chatty.”  Before you get to step 2, ask yerself is yer product chatty worthy?  A few years back I doubt anyone would say that book-marking was a “chatty” thing to chat about.  So maybe having a chatty worth product doesnt matter as much as obtaining infection.  Why would people care about it.  Mass exposure?  Does it help you at all? 

3. Launch. Now. Tomorrow. Every day. Think of Apple.  Seems like every six months or less they annouce yet another product.  This idea of "launch" is simple get it out there, get it out there in beta and have people beta test it for you while you develop it internally.  Its the flickr model to some extent.  You have covered the 900 things you think it should do and then the public gives another 1000… hmm ok well guess what they use it, and you want them to use it, add thier thoughts to the mix.  I will say that delicious never really seemed to “re-launch” itself for me though, flickr didnt either.  Sure it changed but i never saw the big hickups, it just evolved correctly it seems.  Course they did axe some things along the way that i miss.  Everyday launching requires a special mind set.  Who everyday launches something new?  A blog, or a maybe NPR, though NPR can dish out the same damn content day after day.  The weather is good about giving me something new everyday.  Do I want my next web 2.0 to be so unstable as to give me something wildly amazing everyday?  I dunno.

4. Distribute. Distribute. Distribute. Do it for free until you gain mass and then get bought.  Or maybe this is more about, do it now, do it now, do it now, let people know etc.  

5. Don't hold users against their will. Free and don’t quit yer day job. 

6. Be mindnumbingly simple. How is this a web 2.0 ideal?  Ok make it simple.  If its like a bear trap and snaps peoples limbs off, odds are adoption may not occur. 

7. Get people hooked on free. Back to the free thing.  Yes make it free.  Actually this is something I keep running into with people at work at times.  I understand free, free is infectious.  Free makes you remember.  Free is like a free bookmark in someones mind, you remember where you got it for free.  While I agree sure the web2.0 thing needs to be free, even better however, is that it doesnt require registration.  How bout that.  So if its really a free service make it really free.  Maybe make this “no identity required”.. now I’m interested. 

8. Don't waste any money on marketing. This isnt web 2.0 logic, this is basically if you do everything else here, you are in fact marketing it.  Blog-marketing.  Do rules 1–7 and you have done 8. 

9. Don't overfund. This one cracks me up, dont overfund?  Do companies really plan to blow 70million on a 10million project and then go “dang?”  I think its a nuff said, that you basically build with what you got and stay focused, and wheres this new logic seem different?  How is this a web2.0 rule? 

10. No one sucks. Don’t say anything bad about anyone else.  And actually web 2.0 is the opposite of this I think.  Much of the web 2.0 is born out of the mass blogging and those blogs are filled with opinion. Opinion that says i can do this better, or i can go that way and not this way, or ya know what i dont need to use your service and screw internet explorer bring on firefox, screw bookmarks, gimme delicious tags. Things do suck cause youve moved on to something else.  Maybe 10 is more about “don't be an asshole and then get on yer soap box and say you are” ok i could see that.  Flickr is more like the quiet asshole.  I mean it never came out and said all those other services sucked, they just kept to their own thing… and then sold.. but thats ok.  Delicious is the definant geek dick, they are like ‘dude i could care less about what the corps want you to do, this is what i think you should do…”, 37 signals is the poster child of the new net, the “you dont have to understand me, just remember i’m here” sorta stance on all that is web 2.0.  Opinion matters.  People want opinion. 

Interesting rules, not sure how they really change the game other than rehash what people have been thinking for awhile.  Dishing these rules out to VC folks who’ve got 800 million to blow on the next venture is hilarious to me, course maybe thats what its supposed to be.  Maybe now that the web 2.0 has arrived its time to give it form, apply the rules, the structure, the dos and donts and then we’ll blow the cash, launch the IPO’s and set off the fireworks… and then web 3.0 will brew, take shape, get all underground and popular, it’ll be like the whisper on the streets, and then bam, its here, 100,000 users already, and then a million, and 5 million, then the speakers shout out, the conferences go down, the books get written, the rules surface and the big sloth corporations take notice, my mother asks me about it, the media is aware and then the VC funding arrives, the IPOs launch, some thrive, some die.. and web 4.0 starts happening.

Maybe if anything web 2.0 is synergy.  Its that wow, as if, thats cool, near, amazing, check it, this would be cool, hey what about that, did you try this hack, thats neat, we’ll take this and connect it to that, thats awesome, we should do this, what about that thing, ya know by doing this – now this is possible too, very cool….

Synergy.  That’s web 2.0. The multi-color radical wild ass project that will no doubt come again and again on this planet with all these whacky humans.