Feedonomics

It should be clear by now that the Web 2.0 boom is coming to an end. VC funding is slowing down along with the rest of the economy, and the various start-up deadpool lists are filling up. That doesn’t mean that the appeal of getting rich quick with technology has died out. There is a never ending supply of bright, young minds eager to be the next Google. We already know that whatever the next wave is about it will be called Web 3.0, but does it have to be a repeat of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0? Do we have to focus on the next cool site or social toy that will get millions of people to focus their narcissistic energies on themselves, or their “friends” who are just reflections of themselves?

I’ve been spending the weekend collecting topic-based blog feeds for a news aggregation site we are building, and the most interesting thing isn’t the quantity or quality of the feeds, but the direction of their attention. All of these blogs are directed outward to an unseen, unknown audience. Whether they are writing about wine, or baseball, or astronomy, all of these bloggers are broadcasting what they think about the world. Yes, communities of bloggers have formed, and in some cases actual friendships between people with similar interests have developed, but have any problems been solved? It seems like so-called social tools are mostly being used to pursuade people to back their candidate or further their get rich quick scheme.

What if Web 3.0 was about creating tools that let groups of people focus inward on specific problems and find solutions? I don’t mean just talking about solutions, but actually implementing them. Craigslist is an interesting example of what could have been. In a few years it has left newspapers gasping for lost classified revenue, and caused innumerable old couches to be given freely between consenting twenty-somethings. What if a Craigslist for problem solving was created that allowed a barter economy to develop around social change? What if it focused the energy of millions of people on a few common targets instead of themselves? Maybe the hot area of Web 3.0 could be solution aggregation.