What is wrong with the web 2.0 workgroup?
On the surface, there is nothing wrong with the web 2.0 workgroup. In fact, I have every single one of these blogs in my daily blog reader and love reading what these thought leaders are up to. Together, the web 2.0 workgroup is perhaps the single best source of content for what is going on regarding the future of the web. I read every single blog post by the likes of Scooble and TechCrunch and Read/Write Web.
However, I do think that the ideal vision of a web 2.0 workgroup could be so much more.
What is missing? A lot!
Lets just see how many of the key web 2.0 attributes actually apply to the web 2.0 group:
Foundation attributes
1) User contributed content - No (members only - best content could be excluded)
2) The long tail - No (members only - best content could be in long tail)
3) Network effects - Weak
Experience attributes
1) Decentralization - No (members only)
2) Co-creation - No (members only)
3) Remixability - Yes (RSS, OPML, etc)
4) Emergent Systems - No (value of service not driven by all users)
Ok granted, the web 2.0 workgroup was not designed and never claimed to fully embrace all of the things that make web 2.0 special. However, why is there no tool that makes it far easier for a true web 2.0 driven web 2.0 workgroup to emerge?
I have some ideas but the reason this problem has not been solved is because it is not easy to solve.
However, if anyone can do it, I can see the service become very valuable very quickly. Here at BlinkList we are certainly trying to do our part to surface information from the long-tail but I have to admit that we are still far away from the service that I envision here.
Until something better comes along, I will continue to get my web 2.0 news from the web 2.0 workgroup, memeorandum, digg, and of course BlinkList.
web2.0 web+2.0 web20 memeorandum technorati techcrunch blinklist
I certainly agree with everything you said...and also that the problem is a hard one to solve. At this point the workgroup is merely a place for participating bloggers to bounce ideas off eachother, and occasionally bicker amongst ourselves about this and that. Perhaps someday it will become something more.
Mike, TechCrunch
Tha is an interesting observation and agree with you as well. Perhaps this could be a technology issue- only certain 'web 2.0 sites' are headlined in web2.0 workgroup and as you mentioned pretty closed door in nature.Although I think the swicki bit tries to provide some sort of solution to the long tail issue for these types of content by allowing people to search for related content.
Perhaps the techmemeorandum and blinklists of the world could provide a specific solution to the growing abundance in web 2.0 literature and also within the so called workgroup itself. I personally use Blinklist for most of my web 2.0 searches because it has highly relevanta and well tagged web 2.0 type content.
tzuming
http://www.nextstepscorp.com