Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide: Business thinking and strategies behind successful Web 2.0 implementations, by Amy Shuen

On September 30th, 2005, Tim O'Reilly published his piece, 'What Is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software'. The crowd went wild - so wild, in fact, that many people didn't even bother to read the article, instead listening to other perspectives on what Tim O'Reilly wrote. In a period of great tumult across the Internet, the definition of Web 2.0 was as various as the people who wrote or spoke of it. In a way, the article suffered at the hands of Web 2.0 itself - and great confusion ran rampant on the Internet. It became a marketing buzzword. It was found in all manner of brochures.

But few, if any, truly understood what Web 2.0 was - and what Web 2.0 is. I've wrestled with the topic myself, since it is at times transparent and at others as clear as mud. Web 2.0 isn't something that is limited to a technology, as I first believed - linking it to AJAX, which was being touted as a Web 2.0 technology. To me, the whole thing from a technology perspective was not a big deal. Technologies come and go; after a quarter of a century of paying rapt attention to technology I read the words of the prophets (profits?) with a jaded detachment.

The business model was what was interesting. The business model is what is interesting. This is what Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide: Business thinking and strategies behind successful Web 2.0 implementations is about. With a note from John Battelle, Founder of Federate Media, on the front cover - also the author of The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture (which I was impressed with), the book gained a level of trust from me. Whether it lived up to that or not was something that would be determined. I plunged into it with vigor.

The author, Amy Shuen, delves into the successes of Web 2.0 business models such as those of Google, Flickr, Amazon.com, Facebook and their competition. Her analysis, while done after the fact, does highlight certain things that worked - and others that did not.

I took a few days on this book because it was a pensive read for me - as it should be for anyone who picks it up. While the author writes of all of this, the audience of this book will probably spend a lot of time considering their own business model in the same contexts - and how to leverage every bit of information provided. The theories that explain the successes are well presented and illustrated when necessary (I liked the hand written feel of the graphs; that was refreshing). Things like Google and AOL deal pushing Google's advertising market share to the tipping point, like Microsoft's investment in Facebook valuing the stock, and so on. While theories, these theories seem bulletproof in explaining how the successes became successes - and why those in second place remain in second place.

There are perceived weaknesses to the book, such as the lack of of discussion of Web 3.0. To this reviewer, I find that perceived weakness to be non-existent: The book is not about Web 3.0, and the book is about what has worked in the past for others - dispelling myths and informing the interested reader. It is a pragmatic book, the author sticks to what can be explained and does a great job doing so. It is not a book of specifics, it is not a book of the future - it is a book about what has happened, what has succeeded and by proxy, what has failed.

While there are many books out there related to Web 2.0 specifics, such as John Battelle's book on Google and Tapscott & Williams' Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, there is nothing resembling the beginning of a unifying theory. Amy Shuen seems to have started something here that needs to be followed up on by everyone interested, creating a basis of a unified business theory that may lack the excitement of a science fiction novel but which does a brilliant job of explaining the successes for those interested in charting a future.

The book scores a KnowProSE.com 8 out of 10. I wanted to give it a 9, but I decided I wanted to know more about what failed and why it failed. In a way, this is unfair of this reviewer - but there must be commonalities in a lot of the failures, and I believe that a book on strategy should show both the good and bad. This does not mean I recommend it - I do so, and highly, but would like more on what failed. We revel in the successes and wish to read about them, but this reviewer has always found failures to be a very good resource as well.