I spoke on a panel at the Communications Group on 28 November.
The panel featured Chris Seth, Ajit Jaokar and Nic Brisbourne on the topic of Web 2.0. As I had to speak last, I quickly mashed up some ideas so I could say something different.
Here is a moderately amended version of those remarks.
Web 2.0 is
not about the internet. Well, it isn't just about the Internet.
It is about
a 'new mode of production with exciting economics'. What do I mean by that?
Take a
quick walk down memory lane and look at the history of industrial organisation.
You started with the sole trader, the blacksmith working on his own clanking
out a horseshoe or hammering out a sword. You then moved towards partnerships
particularly for trading and expeditionary businesses but the structure of
industrial production broadly speaking didn't change until the 17th century
with the arrival of the joint stock company. This was the firm raised money
from shareholders and as a structure it was appealing because it allowed you to
spread risk across many different ventures.
It was this
form of organisation which powered the industrial revolution allowing capital
to be deployed effectively and firms to reach an efficient point of scale. And
this led to the growth of verticalisation: firms which owned industries soup to
nuts. Many of the great industrial firms of their time, like the Ford Motor
company, took this shape. When Ford rolled out the Model T just before World
War I, the company grew its own rubber trees, refined its own steel and even
built and ran railroads to deliver cars. (see The New Industrial Revolution by Bernstein for more details.)