There's been a flurry of posts out in the blogosphere about the notion of 'early adopters' and the lack of mainstream adoption of Web 2.0 services in general. I think its pretty clear that there is an ever-growing divide between the tools techies and early adopters use versus those adopted by the mainstream web audience. First of all, I'm a techie but wouldn't count myself as an early-adopter per se. I just started using twitter a few weeks ago, hardly dabble in Friendfeed, and am usually a bit behind the wave when it comes to adoption of the latest/greatest new technology. Despite this, I am increasingly reminded of the fact that I am hardly mainstream. The mainstream don't want, don't care and don't ‘get' most of the latest Web 2.0 technologies.
What's worrying for me is that the gap between techies/early adopters verus the mainstream web audience seems to be growing at an alarming rate. Most of my friends and family are still using Ebay, Amazon, Gmail, and now Facebook. A small minority may have discovered Flikr. None of them have heard of Twitter or Friendfeed. So what does that say? I think we've missed an entire generation of web services that can bridge this gap. Us techies swoon over the latest Web 2.0 technologies while 99% of the population is still getting comfortable with the 1.0 generation tools. There is simply no demand for those services outside of the tiny minority of early adopers, at least not yet.
I'm convinced think there is a market opening for web sevices that can bridge that gap (Web 1.5?). The mainstream don't even use or understand RSS, but us techies have moved on to Twitter and FriendFeed. Aggregation is an awesome concept, and adds a tremendous amount of value and efficiency. RSS is a simple concept, but still completely new to my friends and family. Why not take a step back and build tools to bring RSS and syndication to the masses first? Otherwise the chasm will just keep growing, and we'll be more and more out of touch with what our friends and family really need.
At NewsCred, we want to build a high value web service for the masses. We want to bring the mainstream web audience up the learning curve and help close that divide. And for all the Twitters that are being built, we're also hoping to see more web services that will help excite and delight the other 99%.
This article was cross-posted on the NewsCred blog.
Comments
Fabio De Bernardi
http://www.veedow.com/
May 7, 2008
Shafqat, I couldn't agree more with your point! What I don't understand is why so few people (almost nobody) raise your same concern.
At the same time if you think of a service like Netvibes (which is not for the average-mainstream user IMO) having millions of users you think that it's mainstream... but I think it's not and you realize it when you ask your friends if they know it...
Anyway getting millions of users gives you the opportunity to grow a great business but we can't consider Netvibes, Digg, Twitter etc. the average startup. They are phenomenal in their space and for 1 service like these 1000 (or more) will miserably fail or stay in the shade. So yes, even if they have millions of users they still represent a tiny niche of the mass. Who's gonna find a web 2.0 or whatever service for the masses will be the next billionaire.
Shafqat Islam
http://newscred.com/
May 11, 2008
Absolutely right Fabio. There are 60 million news readers in the US alone, and Digg has 3M members I think. What about the other 57M? They are still reading Yahoo News or Google News. Making it big amongst the tech community does not translate necessarily to mainstream success. Of course, a few companies have managed to cross that chasm, and Facebook is the prime example.
Kristoffer Lawson
http://www.scred.com/
May 12, 2008
I think the problem is not only that of marketing but of a skewed perspective on the developers' side. There are umpteen companies trying to solve the problem of managing zillions of blogs. That's fine if you're a hardcore Web 2.0 geek and you actually enjoy reading all those blogs, but I'm a techie and I only follow a few essential ones. I simply do not have the problem that many companies are trying to solve. My guess is that many of my friends will not even have heard of this problem, let alone have any need for a solution.
As pointed out, even Twitter, which has become relatively well known, is hardly mainstream. For me I have yet to find the itch it is scratching and I doubt any of my non-techie friends have heard the name. In the same breath I would argue there are quite a limited number of social networks people are actually willing to spend time with.
It's not all doom and gloom, though. There's a lot of room for inter-person interaction on the web. I think it just boils down to the age old concept of genuinely offering a solution to a problem people have, or serving a need that exists.
Miles Galliford
http://www.subhub.com
May 13, 2008
As entrepreneurs we should be clebrating this gap between the web trailblazers and the mass market.
By watching what is happening at the leading edge of Web 2 we get market direction. Then all we have to do is turn this knowledge into simple intutive services that lead the mass market in the right direction.
A good example is the Nintendo Wii. Playstation and XBox are focused on pushing the boundaries of gaming - faster, more sophisticated, more realistic, more, better, best... Meanwhile Nintendo saw that these companies had moved beyond what the mass market wanted, needed and felt comfortable with. They cruised into the gaming market with a simple console with intuitive games which anyone could master in minutes. Guess what?! The Wii has outsold Playstation and XBox every month since it was launched.
So lets celebrate the geek gap and fill it with great products and service which satisfy the masses. Thats certainly what I'm doing!
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