If you were to weigh all of the editorial that has been written about the Internet – the most exciting, disruptive communications platform ever created – I bet 75% of that edit would be about how it is tearing the stomach out of "old school" media ventures. Skype is killing telephone company landline revenue. Peer-to-peer music services have killed CD sales. Craigslist has halved newspaper classified revenue. Email has us on the verge of a 4-day postal service. Need I go on?
Not enough has been written about the money making side of the Internet…and that’s because there’s not a lot of that going on. If Web 1.0 was about ubiquity and connectivity and Web 2.0 is/was about usability, search and community, then Web (dare I type it) 3.0 is about revenue.
What is going on at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference this week in Boston is all about revenue. Not about selling widgets or hard and soft goods but about how to make companies more efficient. The real breakthrough after companies are more efficient will be innovation. Innovation the likes of which we have never before seen. We will cure cancer, solve the energy crisis and even morph into a more peaceful planet when we create “social business design” solutions for our planet. (Thanks Dachis Corporation.) Oh yeah, it will create lots of money for corporations, too.