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Web 2.0 as broccoli ice cream
Dec 17, 2007
Jakob Nielsen offers an entertaining take on Web 2.0:
The most-hyped site right now, Facebook, is the "Iron Chef" of the Internet. The Iron Chef competition makes for great TV, but has nothing to do with running a restaurant as a successful business. After all, chefs aren't typically assigned a "mystery ingredient" shortly before dinnertime that they must feature throughout a multi-course meal. Broccoli ice cream? Not if you want to make money and bring the diners back.
Like Iron Chef, Facebook has much drama that makes for good press coverage, but most of its features are worthless for a B2B site that, say, is trying to sell forklift trucks to 50-year-old warehouse managers. Instead of adding Facebook-like features that let users "bite" other users and turn them into zombies, the B2B site would get more sales by offering clear prices, good product photos, detailed specs, convincing whitepapers, an easily navigable information architecture, and an email newsletter.
Well put.
Web 2.0: it's the broccoli ice cream of the Internet.
See also: The Web 2.0 question - and Grandparents.com
He's right, but it's not really a fair argument. Facebook's features are worthless for a B2B site? Of course they are, no one claimed that Facebook was a model for a B2B site. In fact, one could say that a B2B site's features are worthless for sites like Facebook.
I mean, come on, who'd say that a feature that lets users "bite" other users and turn them into zombies should appear on a forklift site. Honestly.
I agree. Jakob kinda of misses the point. Facebook was a cool site that bolted on a business model when it got popular enough, (and then didn't even execute very well on it.)
In fact there are thousands of questionable web 2.0 sites out there, and Jakob could fret about all of them, but he needn't worry. The ones that aren't useful will surely be swept aside by "creative destruction."
~alex
Like a promo for Iron Chef, Nielsen makes a sensational claim that is good for press coverage, but is otherwise off the mark and not a fair comparison.
I think he's merely riling against the notion that everything has to be Web 2.0 now. It doesn't.
Of course they are, no one claimed that Facebook was a model for a B2B site.
If you think that's true then you'd be surprised at what some clients ask for. They don't ask for zombies and Super Walls, but they do think social software is the good idea that will save their site, when in fact they need to be concentrating on compelling content.