Get Serious! Corporate Flirting with the Web Must Stop

If I were the Web, I would be tired of all the dating games by now and would have moved on to someone else. It seems as though all global corporations want to do is flirt, date or maybe have a fling or two with the web and then move on. Many don't want to invest in it like it's a long term relationship. Corporate America's love affair with the Web is hot and heavy for a while and then it dies. In other words, it's cyclical and this has to stop.

I have been watching the whole brouhaha over the Web 2.0 service mark controversy. And honestly, I think the entire issue is a joke. The truth is we should not be talking about Web 2.0. The only reason we are is that the excitement in the Web as a business platform went from boom (Web 1.0) to bust (Web -2.0) to boom again (Web 2.0). We're like the guy (or lady) who won't commit. Shame on us.

Consider the recent rash of media articles about corporations going Web ga-ga. Exhibit A: a big splashy cover story package in Fortune about Hollywood's Web 2.0 group hug. Exhibit B: the FT says Old Media is embracing Internet startups. You could have read very similar articles in 1998 but you would never have seen them in 2002.

Now that the love affair with the Web is back on, we need to get serious in this relationship or get out for good. Don't flirt with the Web. Commit for the long haul. That way, there won't be a Web 3.0.

Comments

[RBA]

Well, considering that a very high percentage (not all) of the so-called web 2.0 companies will die in search of a healthy and sustainable business model, we might see another fall sooner or later. And after the fall, perhaps another rise. So I'm afraid we'll see Web 3.0 like it ot not.

Thing is, after the Web 2.0 era, people might be afraid to call the next thing "Web 3.0" so my bet is that we'll see what you're hoping we won't, but it won't be called Web X.X but something else that hopefully won't remind us of Web 2.0 and whatever happened to it.

[Mike Abundo]

Agreed. It's time the suits got serious with the geeks.

[Vladimir Orlt]

There is commitment to only one (or two?) things in the business world: the bottom line (and short-term thinking?)... and all phenomena live and die by that rule if they are associated with business.