There is a growing trend of business models and projects popping up over night and are instantly becoming successful. Think Google, Facebook and wait for iPhone apps. This rapid expansion and evolution has been able to happen to several business models over the last ten years where, in the past, the most rapidly growing businesses would take ten years to become established.
The main driver for this has originated from the movement to allow open information to everyone in order leverage the greater knowledge bank and public collaboration. Open source/data/content has now well and truly come into its grove, being adapted by major global business to springboard ideas. Better yet, anyone can benefit from the use of open information.
LinkingOpenData a wiki collaboration community project.
The nature of the web
By its very nature the internet allows for collaboration and connectivity to people on a scale that previous media hasn’t been able to achieve. At best you had a conference call on a phone, this still being limited to people who’s number you have and the cost of the call/repeat calls. The internet however allows for the connection of people on a grand scale around any idea, no matter how obscure at little to no ongoing cost.
The evolution of ideas can now be hastened at great speeds as the barriers to learning such as content distribution and collaboration can now happen on a grand scale. As information is shared, tweaked and redeveloped at a faster pace, so too will ideas.
The big players are open to the idea
Facebook
No doubt one of the most popular digital communication channels of the last year-and-a-half has been the proverbial Facebook app. With over 1,800 apps created by third-party production houses, the platform has been a runaway success and the most popular ten applications reach over 46 million users world-wide.
iPhone
Opening its platform for developers and allowing 70% of profits from iPhone app sales could have been one of Steve Job’s greatest moves yet. As developers around the world scramble to create iPhone apps, the iPhone economy is set to become a mutli-billion dollar business by end-2009.
Google
From the day it begun Google’s mission has been to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. From its initial search engine, to its books project to the completely open source Android phone and its recent Open ID Google consistently strives to facilitate the global move to share information with revenue being a secondary consideration.
Yahoo!
In spite of – or perhaps due to – its ongoing trials and tribulations, Yahoo! has done an admirable job of remaining on track with plans to open its platform to the developer community – plans that could mean the survival of a company that is among the old guard of the Web as we now know it. As the Yahoo! Open Strategy (Y!OS) team officially throws open the gates to a newly rewired and open Yahoo!, providing developers with unprecedented access to Yahoo!’s network and social data.
AOL
Remember these guys? Though they might bring up memories of the internet in its dinosaur 1.0 days, AOL is certainly picking up the pace with its open source data, recently announcing the new developer site for MyAOL today and the new platform warrants some serious attention.
It’s about the idea
From documentaries to science to general information, allowing information to be published and used freely is allowing evolution on a mass scale no matter the subject. Even G2 New Zealand recently held a week-long open source bran storm week.
No matter the idea, open information allows you to fully utilise the long tail of the web to your advantage. The more engaging the idea and information/platform you have to give, the better the outcome.
What does this mean for me?
It shouldn’t matter if you are a music enthusiast, a student or Oncologist, every human who has access to the internet can now enable learning and development at a much faster pace. Whoever facilitates and develops the knowledge community for their particular long-tail niche will become a service provider, expert via association and own a powerful destination/media property/consumer insights hub.
Bringing open information to your organisation doesn’t mean having to invent an iPhone equivalent however. It can be as simple as using a wiki on some of your corporate web pages, how about product reviews, opinion polls etc. The main thing is openness and honesty. People are going to talk about your company, products and their experiences with them regardless of what you do, marketers need to be able to work with people. Bad reviews can be met with a company representative discussion new projects/NPDs that will overcome previous faults. This new way of business allows your consumers become collaborators and respect you.
The days of controlling opinions are well and truly over the quicker companies embrace this fact the quicker they’ll get traction in the new way people work together.
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