Preface
Just ten years ago, personal computers started to become a tool for everyone. But networking including the reach and capacity of the public Internet were still very limited. At the end of the 1990s, dial-up Internet connections became common in many European and North American households, but the Internet was still mostly a tool to search and exchange information. A few years later, faster broadband connections started to replace slow modem connections.
With faster Internet speeds, the type and scope of applications and services available on the Internet have boomed. The Internet has developed from predominantly an information tool to an enabler of entertainment, transactions and socialising, and has become an essential element in many people's daily lives. Most recently as bandwidth has increased in mobile phone networks, the Internet has also become mobile.
New developments emerge very rapidly, especially in the Internet world. Some are transient phenomena which burst on the scene and then disappear within a very short period. Others have a lasting effect. One set of phenomena on the Web, which has been seen lately, has been dubbed Web 2.0. In Gartner's "2006 Emerging Technologies Hype Cycle", Web 2.0 was selected as one of the top key technologies over the coming ten years. However, what Web 2.0 actually stands for seems very unclear. When Basecamp asked 1000 of their customers what Web 2.0 meant to them, 13% answered that they didn't know what it was. Of the 87% who answered yes on the question, nearly everybody came up with a different description.
In recent months, Arthur D. Little has been engaged in a number of client projects and internal assessments which address the development, changes, challenges and ways of positioning a business within the newly emerging Web phenomenon. In this paper we present the findings and insights towards the understanding and implications of these Web trends which have emerged so far.
We have realised that it is necessary not only to assess effects within the Web sphere itself, but also to expand the perspective into neighbouring industries where the influence of the Web is growing considerably. We believe that the phenomena covered under the Web 2.0 umbrella will have very far reaching and broad consequences for other TIME industries. Even the long predicted convergence of the TIME industries finally seems to become a reality - at least on a service level. The Internet bubble at the end of the last century could not deliver on this promise to drive the unfolding of an age of digital convergence. Today the signs point in a different direction - preconditions in terms of technology and understanding of capabilities and economics have changed. While six years ago, digital convergence was not operationally feasible - among other reasons, due to technical limitations (i.e. lack of broadband penetration and device capabilities) most of these limitations have now been overcome, and convergence is being driven by the smart innovators using the potential of the Web. These companies have understood that the Web is changing user behaviour. Most new services are user centred, and the changes taking place in the way people use the Web will not only affect the Web world, but eventually spread to the neighbouring TIME markets.
Before we elaborate on the Web phenomenon we present an overview of the underlying drivers of the current developments in chapter 1. Our perspectives on Web 2.0 are then outlined in chapter 2, followed by a look at the dominant business models of Web services in chapter 3. Finally, in Chapter 4 we derive implications of the Web world for TIME markets and participants.
Hier gelangen Sie zum Report im PDF Format
Keine Kommunikationsobjekte vorhanden.
