Internet Tech Boston

Yahoo! has launched an invite-only beta of their new social networking site: Yahoo! Mash.

I created my online profile and have spent only a couple of hours customizing and inviting a few colleagues to join. My first blush opinion is that it’s basically a rip-off of MySpace, Facebook, and/or LinkedIn. A big part of me thinks Mash is just a johnny-come-lately response from corporate suits afraid they’re missing the next big wave. I’m not sure it has any real value for B2B marketers at all, but the jury’s still out.

However, if you’re into this sort of thing as a personal networking tool, it’s kind of interesting. Namely, other people can update your profile. I guess the concept is to leverage user-generated content not only about other people, places, and things; but also about yourself to. An article by Rafe Needleman feels that Mash has borrowed from the best

If anyone’s interested, let me know and I’m happy to invite you in.

The irrational exuberance building in the investment world related to all things Web 2.0 is spilling over into the world of long-established businesses with solid, healthy Internet Marketing initiatives. Now, you can hire all sorts of consultants that are more than willing to help you “install a blog” or “implement a social media strategy.”

For everyone out there that understands what Web 2.0 is, its place in an overall Internet Marketing program, and is not running for cover just because the corporate social media strategy has not yet been codified at their company; take heart – it won’t be long before our abuse of the newly emerging semantic web (oops, I mean Web 2.0) will cause us to distrust and dismiss all this glorious content we are all so busy generating.

Online collaboration sites, usually powered by wiki’s, were the first seedlings of the Web 2.0 forest. Now, creating false entries on Wikipedia, aka “gaming“, has become the norm. This has given rise to sites like WikiScanner which provide tools to help web visitors identify false contributions. I’m guessing if a typical web user feels the need to use WikiScanner to verify the validity of Wikipedia editors, it’s not a good thing. What good is all this user generated content if you can’t trust any of it? In other words, as WikiScanner usage rises, you can bet Wikipedia usage will fall.

Blogging won’t last much longer in it’s current state either. Wal-Mart recently got caught with it’s faux blog or flog titled Wal-Marting Across America. Seriously, who loves Wal-Mart that much anyway? That’s just one of many, many instances of big business abusing the Web 2.0 concept. For the rest of us who blog under the best intentions, see Andrew Keen’s Cult of the Amateur and know that “we’re assaulting our economy, our culture and our values. Web 2.0 is pushing us back into the Dark Ages.”

Another sign that this Web 2.0 phenomenon won’t be around much longer is the general sameness of the companies trumpeting their new services. As far as platform services, there are 2 main flavors of Web 2.0 startups. One group allows me to “manage everything in one central place,” and the other makes it “incredibly easy to collaborate” with others. They all look the same too.

I know you must be thinking: “Internet Marketer has bad day at the office and rants on his blog about all things Web 2.0.” Well, partly right. I and my colleagues do the best we can to provide real services to address real business problems and provide measurable ROI. All this Web 2.0 is getting in the way.

In the August 13th, 2007 issue of BtoB Magazine, a short article mentions the results of a Forrester Research Report which stated that “RSS has the highest value among Web 2.0 technologies.” The article goes on to explain that, in defining value “the majority look at traditional metrics such as ROI and Total Cost of Ownership.” Before we all abandon all Internet Marketing channels and rush to develop a few dozen RSS feeds, let’s think a little bit more about how the title of “highest value” might have been achieved.

Prior to the advent and wide acceptance of RSS, virtually all corporate websites already had a mechanism for storing and displaying late breaking and quickly changing information. Typically, this was the “News” section of the website that also had a prominent place on the homepage. Adding a new presentation layer in XML format for RSS readers to the existing data in the “News” section of the website that was most likely already Content Managed, makes for a very small “I” in ROI.

Regarding the TCO of an RSS feed, I can think of few other tactics that approach zero as closely as an active RSS Feed. With the release of the RSS 2.0 specification in September 2002, the standard was set. Flash forward five years and the RSS 2.0 specification has been integrated in the built-in RSS readers of all major web browsers and email clients – not to mention standalone RSS-reader apps. With organizations such as Microsoft, Mozilla, and Apple coming together to agree on the RSS 2.0 specification, the likelihood of a future fractured standard is pretty slim.

In other words, the true value of RSS feeds lies in its combined ease of setup and a total cost of ownership that is virtual zero. Because of these combined factors, it’s not surprising it has become the leading technology in the rush to “Web 2.0.” My recommendation is to keep your RSS Strategy very simple. Quickly RSS-enable the content that is already conceptually setup to receive it – News, Press Releases, White Papers, Industry Articles. Avoid the temptation of hiring anything akin to a “Senior RSS Consultant.” Instead, focus on the heavy-lifting of Internet Marketing such as global content development, generating qualified traffic, and landing page testing.