Beyond Web 2.0: Implications of Mobile
/Extracted 01MAY2012 from http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2012/04/30/heres-why-google-and-faceb...
In the tech world, we’ve really had 3 generations:
- Web 1.0 (companies founded from 1994 – 2001, including Netscape, Yahoo! (YHOO), AOL (AOL), Google (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN) and eBay (EBAY)),
- Web 2.0 or Social (companies founded from 2002 – 2009, including Facebook (FB), LinkedIn (LNKD), and Groupon (GRPN)),
- and now Mobile (from 2010 – present, including Instagram).
With each succeeding generation in tech, it seems the prior generation can’t quite wrap its head around the subtle changes that the next generation brings...
Social companies born since 2010 have a very different view of the world. These companies – and Instagram is the most topical example at the moment – view the mobile smartphone as the primary (and oftentimes exclusive) platform for their application. They don’t even think of launching via a web site. They assume, over time, people will use their mobile applications almost entirely instead of websites...
The organizational ecologists talked about the “liability of obsolescence” which is a growing mismatch between an organization’s inherent product strategy and its operating environment over time. This probably is a good explanation for what we’re seeing in the tech world today...
I imagine we’ll see as many great examples of social companies jumping horses mid-race to become great mobile companies... In all likelihood, we could have an entirely new way of gathering information and interacting with ads in a new mobile world than what we’re currently used to today.
The Googles and Facebooks of tomorrow might not even exist today. And several Web 1.0 and 2.0 companies might be completely wiped off the map by then. Fortunes will be made by those who adapt to and invest in this complete greenfield. Those who own the future are going to be the ones who create it.