| 25/10/2006
18 months after its inception into the sphere of online video sharing, Youtube now streams over 70 million videos daily to over 50 million users. Similarly, MySpace has become the world largest “friendship” network online and provides members with a means to create personalised homepages and interact amongst themselves.
Having turned two simple concepts into two of the most well recognised and renowned websites in the world, it would be the understatement of the century to say that these companies are doing something right.
Evidenced last year by the sale of MySpace for 580 million and recently by the acquisition of Youtube for a staggering 1.65 billion, clearly the market that these internet giants have tapped into is big business; and it is growing exponentially.
If Google is willing to spend $1.65B on an online video company, then they must not only believe that there is a significant amount of growth to come in online video sharing but that the web is now much more capable of supporting the diverse and varied needs of millions of people worldwide.
5 years ago, it would have been close to impossible for these companies to have succeeded at the level that they have. The concept of being able to put a video on a computer was outlandish enough; any thought of enabling users worldwide to then share the video in real time quickly and easily according to each users specific requests would have been impossible.
So what has changed?
The web. With the introduction of web 2.0 (pronounced web “two-point-o”), websites are now faster, smarter, more functional, and most importantly more interactive, making users more satisfied, and most importantly more willing to return.
Previously, most web users would only remember the best of websites; put simply, now the best web 2.0 sites remember you.
Wikipedia describes Web 2.0 as a second-generation of Internet-based services that let people collaborate and share information online in methods that were previously very difficult to use. After a realization of how the existing technologies such as Ajax and xHTML can be used together to make the user experience significantly improved, web 2.0 utilises this realisation to maximise the effectiveness and interactivity of websites.
In summary, web 2.0 websites move beyond the traditional barriers of web development and maximise the relevance of the information provided to each user and the level of interaction between the user and the website.
MySpace and Facebook have “friendship” networks at their core which makes them inherently engaging and viral. This, in addition to the levels of personalisation available on the website, makes users more willing to use the site and then spread the news.
YouTube is in many ways the MTV of the current generation. What's more, many note the user experience to be better than any other online video site or TV channel.
MySpace and Youtube understand web 2.0 and any company wishing to reach beyond the traditional barriers of the internet must attempt to harness the possibilities that web 2.0 can offer
tags:
Technology
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