Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide

Web 2.0 makes headlines, but how does it make money? This concise guide explains what's different about Web 2.0 and how those differences can improve your company's bottom line. Whether you're an executive plotting the next move, a small business owner looking to expand, or an entrepreneur planning a startup, Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide illustrates through real-life examples how various businesses, large and small, are creating new opportunities on today's Web.

This book is about strategy. Rather than focus on the technology, the examples concentrate on its effect. You learn that creating a Web 2.0 business, or integrating Web 2.0 strategies with your existing business, means creating places online where people like to come together to share what they think, see, and do. When people come together over the Web, the result can be much more than the sum of the parts. The customers themselves help build the site, as old-fashioned "word of mouth" becomes hypergrowth.

Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide demonstrates the power of this new paradigm by examining how:
- Flickr, a classic user-driven business, created value for itself by helping users create their own value
- Google made money with a model based on free search, and changed the rules for doing business on the Web-opening opportunities you can take advantage of
- Social network effects can support a business-ever wonder how FaceBook grew so quickly?
- Businesses like Amazon tap into the Web as a source of indirect revenue, using creative new approaches to monetize the investments they've made in the Web

Written by Amy Shuen, an authority on Silicon Valley business models and innovation economics, Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide explains how to transform your business by looking at specific practices for integrating Web 2.0 with what you do. If you're executing business strategy and want to know how the Web is changing business, this book is for you.