WTF 2.0

Russell Beattie has posted an excellent essay that criticizes the short memory spans of Web 2.0 developers. Russell argues — and righty so — that there’s no use wasting time and energy developing Web 2.0 services that don’t have a business model or at least some kind of revenue-minded goals. So sayeth Russell: [Web 2.0] […]

Russell Beattie has posted an excellent essay that criticizes the short memory spans of Web 2.0 developers. Russell argues — and righty so — that there's no use wasting time and energy developing Web 2.0 services that don't have a business model or at least some kind of revenue-minded goals. So sayeth Russell:

[Web 2.0] has just mutated. Somehow the focus flipped from “making” platforms to “using” them. Ajax came along, Social Software and Tagging took over, RSS alone was considered an API, a few companies got bought, mobile was forgotten about completely and somewhere along the way the whole part about the “business” stuff went totally out the window. Hey, I'm all about creating useful and innovative software for your users, but if you can't make a profit, you won't be around long enough to make any sort of difference, and will probably cause more harm than good. So why is this happening?

It's an interesting read whether you agree with him or not. This very topic was the hot button issue last week at the innaugural Mashup Camp, and it's also been a point of contention within large corporations that spend hundreds of person-hours developing APIs which essentially give away corporate assets for free to the public.

? And is it still the Wild West out there or what?

[link via O'Reilly Radar]