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Web 3.0 User Generated Business: Review

March 22, 2010 6:31:35.110

Last week I read a short book by Johannes Bhakdi - "Web 3.0 - User Generated Business". I was skeptical of the book when I first opened it - it's short, and lots of the book is done in Powerpoint stick-man style presentation graphics. However, I was pleasantly surprised by it. While it is a "campaign book" for Johannes' business, it also makes some good points about how you should establish your brand (corporate or personal).

While services like YouTube, Facebook (et. al.) can be critical, you should always point those back to a central "home" for your content. A decade ago that was harder to do - now, with services like Slicehost (the place I host this blog), it's far easier and more affordable. That's related to one of the key points Johannes makes in the book - he believes (and I agree with him) that it's still too hard for the average web user to set up shop and start pushing out content - on two levels:

  • Setting up your own site - one that can manage audio, video, and text, is not only hard, but, in the case of "heavier" content, still expensive
  • Getting paid for content production is next to impossible

The latter topic is one that Johannes spends a fair amount of time on. He's certainly following his own advice; the book is self published, and his outfit (klatcher.com) is in the business of providing the sorts of tools he's advocating. I have no idea how well those tools work; obviously, I'm living in the "roll your own" reality here :) )

There are a few downsides - self publishing doesn't obviate the need for an editor, and this book needs a once over. There are some distracting spelling issues (personally, I hate seeing "loose" when "lose" is called for). I was way more distracted by the construction "The Web 3.0" than I should have been, but I just don't like how that flows.

Those are nits, but they were distracting. It's not a book you'll spen a lot of time reading, but I think it ties some useful ideas about how to proceed with a web-based business together. If Johannes has the book re-edited, I'd recommend it.

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posted by James Robertson

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