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 kick-ass 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%.
Great stuff! The tech echo chamber is hard to break out of sometime. But you are right, we do need to connect back to mainstream audience. Otherwise, its like we’re all missing the point.
Very true!
Thanks for the comments guys. This is something I’ve been thinking about recently. New web services are always built to impress the techies/early adopters. Its a big risk to put out a web service that may not be cutting edge because of negative feedback from that group. However, in the long run, a service for the mass market will always be more valuable than for a niche.
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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 absolutely 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…
Who’s gonna create a web 2.0 or whatever service for the masses will be the next billionaire.
Fabio – you hit the nail on the head. Whoever can figure out how to take one of these services and really make it mainstream is holding the golden ticket. Forget all the ‘hot’ services we techies use. These are blips on the radar. I can think of one company that has crossed that chasm: starts with F and ends with K. Fifteen billion anyone?
Starts with F and ends with K… err, I hope it’s not just 4 letters long!!
Anyway, Facebook is probably the real big thing because it has massive adoption but what’s the initial feeling of my friends when they join FB? How the f*** does it work?? Then they get it… hopefully. The real paradigm shift will arrive with the current generation. They are born with the internet and will be ready to use geekier services and apps on a grander scale. Let’s wait and see…
Thanks for your article.
Well, to restore one of my gaps, here comes my learning-question: I just started with WordPress. How do I apply ‘Leave a Reply’, the way you’ve done on this site?
Привет всем!!!
Интересно почему должно быть так!! Аха что еще придумаешь???
Yes all this much interesting
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