The web has steadily become a utility of the masses. We've all become familiar with using the web for communicating, surfing, shopping, receiving information in different forms and a host of other usage attributes both personally and professionally.
The web economy has largely been fed by advertisers vying for eyeballs and attention. Advertisers have been a fundamental resource of the web economy. When a change occurs that alters the old models and creates improved models with a promise of higher returns then said changes are likely to create systemic shifts across the entire web.
Systemic changes ripple through the entire web and influence the system from end to end. Any new innovation usually spawns further innovations throughout the supply chain of interconnected elements that fuel the usage patterns of the web as we know it today. We are at a point of web history in which systemic changes are being fueled by the innovations facilitated by the social web.
The social web brings more influential human elements with global reach than any previous technological development in the history of the web. Combine the influence of the human elements with the innovation and demand of the swarms and you have a scenario that will fuel further changes unforeseen, unpredictable and unimaginable.
What and Who Moves the Web Forward?
Today's Web 2.0 initiatives, silo networks and emerging models are the infants of what the web can and will be, sooner than later. The BIG (IBM,Microsoft, Google, Facebook, etc.etc.) are influencing the web with incremental innovation that just fuels the appetite of the end user for more individual control, less silo's mentality and more openness. The current models of the "BIG" are economically fueled by shifting advertising models from brands anxious to be just a click away from the end user and always in our face. The small represent over 600 million users of the toddler web, known as Web 2.0, and the users want to reduce the cycle time by which the toddler web grows up.
The "what" and "who" that moves the web forward are driven by thought leaders and influences from both the BIG and the small. Google's OpenSocial is an example of the BIG pushing the "open" ball forward a notch, but not a leap. Doc Searls VRM Project is an example of one person, both BIG because of the depth and breadth of thinking and small because he is one person, setting in motion a path for the web to grow from a toddler to an adult. Doc's vision and roadmap of the web can and will be fulfilled when the small unite in mind and spirit and influence the BIG to follow the vision.
There are others like Doc who see the web as a tool for creating abundant markets worth trillions of dollars in new trade, the trade of a new economy. We choose to point to Doc Searls whereas The Cluetrain Manifesto laid the foundation of the track that would bring the web forward. Doc's VRM Project is the fuel that accelerates the Cluetrain to a future that is open, enabling to individuals and empowering to institutions that understand the power of a system that is open with no borders and enables free trade driven by relationships that create the new economy, The Relationship Economy.
Since this is the tenth anniversary of The Cluetrain Manifesto it is time for us to fuel this train and give it speed. If you agree then show your support by join in a conversation with us and Doc. A group on Linkedin has been set up as well as a group on Facebook. Lets celebrate and stoke the engine of the Cluetrain with conversational fuel that awakens the markets.
What say you?
