What’s WEB2.0? In my opinion, it’s Google.
If Netscape was the standard bearer for WEB1.0, Google is the most certainly the standard bearer for WEB2.0. If only because their respective IPOs were defining events for each era.
In our initial brainstorm, I formulated our sense of WEB2.0 by example:
Web 1.0 Web 2.0
DoubleClick –> Google AdSense
Ofoto –> Flickr
Akamai –> BitTorrent
Britannica Online –> Wikipedia
personal websites –> blogging
page views –> cost per click
screen scraping –> web services
publishing –> participation
directories –> tagging
Google began its life as a native web application, never sold or packaged, but delivered as a server, with customers paying, directly or indirectly, for the use of that service.
Google requires a competency that Netscape never needed: database management. Google isn’t just a collection of software tools, it’s a specialized database. Without the data, the tools are useless; without the software, the data is unmanageable.
Google’s service is not a server – though it is delivered by a massive collection of internet servers – nor a broswer – though it is experienced by the user within the broswer.
While both Netscape and Google could be described as software companies, it’s clear that Netscape belonged to the same software world as Lotus, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, while Google’s fellows are other internet application like eBay, Amazon.
This is a interesting picture, how many WEB2.0 companies could you find in it?
Tags: Google, Netscape, Picture, Web 1.0, Web 2.0