Understanding the Current 2.0 Moniker

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Web 2.0 is itself a meme of the internet age, but it has spawned many others- Government 2.0, and Industry 2.0- which, as defined above, is a transition from the before to something new.  But there is a greater definition which can be surmised and will be defined in this article.

The Innovation Life Cycle[1] 

 

The 2.0 moniker means innovative, different, Wow! And yet evolving, and filled with potential able to reach past its original function or intent.  Any 2.0 means the system (service or technology et al) has evolved or transitioned to a second phase, an “exciting” every present, “We can’t believe we lived without this” Stage.  It’s also a signal of “reinvention.” The 2.0 moniker fits right between early adapters and early majority.

 

The Innovation Life Cycle

• Stage 1.0: Creation for Specificity – A system is targeted at a specific group or to fill a perceived need. This comprises of Innovators and early adopters who tend to expand the service by adding and discovering other uses and are the major force of influencing others to use the product. 
• Stage 2:0 Extension – The System achieves a critical mass by extending beyond its core target audience, and targeted users.  It becomes “The next big thing.” And suddenly it is the conversation. This is where Early Majority comes into play.
• Stage 3.0 Ever Present – The system is so ever-present it becomes a verb. (Google, Tweet, Xerox, Phone, Email.) The system is no longer Novel, and is dis-attached from the technology that spawned it and many other systems or technologies are created to support it.   A new category of classification may even be created for it.  This is the state where Late Majority and Laggards adoptors are literally pulled into the massive forward wave.
• Stage 4.0 Reinvention and/or Abandonment – At this stage, innovators again take over, but the system is clearly on its way out.  Laggards only exist here, and branded as “not with it.”  It should be noted that Laggards can sometimes drive the innovation model in an effort to preserve the “idealistic” or cultural feel they had as in Stage 2.0.  (Roller Skates to Roller Blade, VCR to DVR, 8 Track to Tape, Return of Vinyl, and the remodeled PT cruiser car.)
• Stage 5.0 Obsolescence – Few things truly reach this level of obsolesce without force.  The Vacuum Tube for TVs is totally gone, even thou TVs still exist.  8 Tracks are gone, even thou the ability to record and copy Information still exist.  Often times, part of the technology that has been redesigned.

To understand 2.0 moniker as part of the Innovation Life cycle, let’s me first use an example.

 

Twitter is not a web 2.0 Site by itself. It’s static and rather boring.  If one had to go to twitter web site all the time, it would not be a great website, forever lost in a niche; with the publishing of a twitter API, the ability to interact with twitter and twitter users in many different ways has allowed twitter to grow.

 

Twitter is now used for more than talking about or describing breakfast. It is now used for Alerts, to deliver news and to garner almost real time views on a subject better than a focus group. I can twitter from my computer.  My cellphone can twitter. My Friends twitter. I can embed twitter on my web site. The news uses twitter. The police use twitter. People expect other people to tweet and wonder why they don’t. I expect that when I tweet someone I get an answer. Twitter is used in warnings and notifications, to aggregate news and for statistical study.

 

What is interesting about this example is that this is also the definition of email when it started.  This is the pager 10 years ago, this is instant messaging (Aim, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ, and Jabber) 8 years ago, and this is Myspace 5 years ago.  Now those technologies seem either ever present (stage 3.0), tired, or defunct, or no longer “novel.” (  Clearly Stage 4.0 or 5.0)

 

Innovation Phase definition.

 

It is during the stage 4.0 that a system fractures, and moves to either a new medium (tape to DVD) or the current medium continues to be reinvented (Telephone to cellphone).  Because of this its is important to note be clear about the boundaries of the Innovation Life cycle we are using.

We can say we are in:

• Email 3.0 (everyone has email, it’ not novel) or instead Messaging 4.0 (after voice mail, email, Aim, and it’s clear twitter is a reinvention of messaging)
• Skiing 4.0 (Skying is clearly being reinvented with the introduction of the snowboard or Snowboarding 3.0 (people are starting to ask, don’t you now board, you should try) or Winter Activities 2.0 (winter activities are fun again, with the X games leading the branding)

 

 

 

OceansOfThought @ May 7, 2009