Mainstreaming 2.0

                       Mainstreaming 2.0                    

                  

It's "Mainstream" but there's so much more to 2.0

AdWeek's Brian Morrissey recently wrote a stellar piece about the "mainstreaming of Web 2.0". Via research from Avenue A/Razorfish, he reports on how web users are personalizing their digital experiences. The key research finding? Video sharing (YouTube) and personalized web pages (Netvibes, Pageflakes) are now all the rage. Well, we'll admit, we kind of knew this. But, the key reason the article is so relevant is that if AdWeek is covering it and claiming it, it's now official. The only detriment to industry folks of AdWeek calling something mainstream is that publicists now won't be able to get away with terms like "new" or "beta".

The study Brian focused on from Avenue A/Razorfish explains how content sharing via bookmarking, photo sharing, video uploading and tag cloud use is becoming mainstay or second nature to the average web user. Much more prominent continues to be RSS. Certainly the keywords in Brian's article are "mainstreaming" or aka the "Tipping Point" of Web 2.0 tools. Read: Web 2.0 is on the cusp of becoming a mainstay of the Internet. But, we still look around and see plenty of static web properties all over the Internet which don't allow consumers the true capability to personalize their stays online. This gives the web site industry a huge opportunity because there's so much more to 2.0. One of those industries being the retailing industry. The study found that for retailers, the Web has established itself as a research tool for users, with a dominant position occupied by Google. Over half of the respondents said they started their online shopping at a search engine rather than visiting a retail Web site or e-commerce destination like Barnes & Noble.