You know, I still hear a decent amount of people debating what Web 2.0 is and how to define it. The CEO of Google refers to it as a marketing term (this confuses me somewhat) whereas other people define it in many different way: ‘a shift in who and how content is created’ or ‘user-generated content’ or ‘new technologies and platforms that have revolutionized the way we use the Internet’ etc. So why are we even talking about 3.0 when we aren't truly sure what 2.0 is yet?

“Web 2.0 is a paradigm shift much like democracy is to a former dictatorship state”

I have a broader more sociological (ish) view of what Web 2.0 is (don’t worry, I’m getting to my point about 3.0): Web 2.0 is a paradigm shift in the way people interact with the Internet and it’s users, much like Democracy is to former dictatorship state.

Figure 1 below is the traditional information model and consists of the model TV, newspapers, magazines and even the Internet used to operate with. Basically, they held all the information at a central point to where everyone would come to view it. So basically they held the power and usually if you wanted a piece of the space, you paid handsomely for it. So content was controlled, skewed and biased and terms were dictated to you to a certain degree.

However in figure 2, Web 2.0 has opened up the game to allow anyone to publish content and be influential with it as well, I like to refer to this as the Lunatic Fringe Model as all the information and content movement resides on the outer edge of the model and there is little control over what is said and how it moves. So people dictate what content is online, much like a democracy. So in essence, Web 2.0 technology is not some new fangled way of thinking, it is simply a way of the Internet aligning with how everything else happens in the real world. Purchasing power has long shifted back to the consumer (the masses), who runs the country (in theory) is decided by the people (the masses), and online content is now created and approved or disapproved by Internet users (the masses).

Now people want to go and shift this entire paradigm again (only a short small years later) by coining the phrase Web 3.0? So if the Internet was a country, which has shifted from a dictatorship to a democracy and it’s all working pretty well and more people are interested, why on earth would we want to go and change it to Communism or something else?

Now I understand that the way Web 2.0 works has changed a bit since it first broke out but I don’t think it’s changed enough to warrant a new version. To me it sounds like a few glory hoggers have seen a ripple and called it a Tsunami just in case it turns into one so that they can say they were the first to spot it. For me Web 3.0 is another universe away, how about we take it easy and let 2.0 play itself out and if we really need to acknowledge some ripples, let rather call it Web 2.1. Not such a dramatic change but a change none the less.

I’m always amused at how surprised people are that yet another year has arrived. “I can’t believe its 2008 already” or “This year just snuck up on me”. My response to such frivolous commentary usually refers them to the task bar on their computer screen, where they will find the time and if they double click on this, they will find a calendar. Amazing this technology isn’t it? There is nothing surprising about how a calendar works: every year after December 31st, the 1st of January of the next year appears the very next day without fail so why is that people are surprised then by this anomaly?

So indeed, welcome 2008, I at least have been expecting you. In fact I have been planning for your arrival since sometime in the middle of 2007. This is also the year of the Rat which doesn’t sound nearly as auspicious as the year of the tiger or the dragon but still somewhat appropriate as I will be moving back to London in 2008 where apparently you are never more than a few metres away from a rat. Either way, I will have my own dragons to slay in 2008 which include a wedding, a honeymoon, moving abroad, finding a job, learning to Paraglide and talking at a marketing conference for the first time. Hard to tell which dragon there is the bigger!

Now I’ve never professed to be some sort of marketing guru that can predict what 2008 holds for the industry and would never be foolish enough to attempt this as the rate at which technology is influencing the industry means that all we can expect, as the old folks say, is the unexpected.

So instead of a list of things that will happen in marketing this year, here is my list of things that will probably happen or to be more accurate, this is my list of things that I would like to happen in the year of the rat:

- Social media marketing and advertising goes mainstream and shows it’s worth or lack of worth for that matter. I don’t mind which way it goes but as long as it goes somewhere and the hype dies down a bit so we can just get on with it.

- Podcasts go mainstream. Just as there is no doubt that server/hard drive based television and movie services (where the viewer chooses what they watch and when) will dominate the TV market, so will podcasts revolutionize the radio industry offering the same joys of variety, choice and targeting. Every time I turn on the radio in the middle of a 15 minute advert marathon followed by five minutes of over-opinionated, under-humorous Deejays and S Club 7 triple plays, I kiss my MP3 player and thank it for all the Podcasts and music wonder it contains within.

- 2008 will undoubtedly be a big year for the Internal Communications job market. The value of the function is now undoubted across pretty much all national and multi-national companies and this year will see them scrambling for the cream of the comms. I already see the heightened activity in my job alerts.

- Facebook will survive the Google Open Social onslaught / hype. I say this purely because people who generally don’t spend much time on the net (and of course those who do) are on Facebook and nowhere else. This is simply because it is low maintenance and easy to use and all their friends are on it. These people are also not very tech savvy so they couldn’t give a damn about open social and all its platforms, even if we tell them it is a good thing.

- Go green or go home. Consumers seem to be now actively seeking out companies that are green and not pretending to be so. The fact that interest is starting to grow in South Africa and there are even a few early adopters around, is a solid indicator that the rest of the world is in rapid uptake phase already. Yes SA always lags behind by about three or four years and quite often misses the window of opportunity because of this. But hey in Africa, the time is African!

If you are such a consumer and if you aren’t, jump on the bandwagon mate, it’s the best one going around at the moment, check out www.evo.com where you can find all sorts of eco friendly suppliers and products such as solar powered bicycles!

Ever wanted to have your blog posts on your Facebook profile? You can with Flog Blog.

I've just added it to my profile and it works really well and is quite simple to use. Not sure how effective it will be in terms of driving targeted readers to my blog as my profile is more for my friends of which not many of them are marketers.

Well at least when my friends ask me to explain exactly what it is that I do in marketing (ever tried to explain Web 2.0 marketing to an accountant after a few beers?) , I can just tell them to read the bog on my profile. That's more than worth the extra clutter on my minimalist profile page!