Blogs

So we’re heading full steam ahead to be a web 2.0 type company. Mostly because we’re embracing the AJAX buzz and methodology since we’re using those technologies in our software development projects and software components. However we’re not jumping into the RSS / Blog and other web 2.0 stuff that is supposed to be based on empowering end users and easier sharing of data and content. Some of it I don’t really understand that well…especially the business model side. I just heard a new term “Lightweight Business Models”, which made me laugh and think of the dot.bomb 1.0 era. Then I read an article about it that said:

“Paradigm shift. It’s about the end-user experience, not about how much money you’re going to make. Get that right. It works in reverse to the way you’re used to.”

In reverse to making money…that was definitely the business model the dot.com crash;-) Although that’s not the intent of the article I’m still fuzzy on the business models of many of these web 2.0 companies. As we all saw the last time around merely having lots of users and providing new web tools doesn’t guarantee a good business. Being a cynic and quite pragmatic (guess that’s one reason why I’m not gazillionaire), I’ve chosen quite a simple business model: build some cool “AJAX” components that save developers days to weeks of dev time and charge them a few hundred bucks for that benefit. And we pay for this by doing consulting contracts and outsourced R&D for other software companies and channel the profit to our component team salaries. The more components we build the more we can sell. Black and white. Anyway I’m going to be studying these companies like Sxip and Flickr in more detail. There’s a lot of smart people working in this space, and the momentum in building…so hopefully I can figure it out before it gets away from me again;-) Here’s to riding the wave!