Why is Web 2.0 only about Consumer Sites?

One thing I find strange about the whole Web 2.0 phenomena is that it is largely consumer oriented.

If you take a look at TechCrunch you notice that the vast majority of the services and companies being launched are for end-user consumers. Tom Evslin just wrote a post about how to pitch to VCs and I've got to say after reading it - that makes a lot of sense for consumer companies but certainly not for enterprise companies. Seems like no one is really thinking about enterprise companies right now.

Where are all the Enterprise Web 2.0 companies? Dennis McDonald is the only one I know of who is even studying enterprise adoption of existing technologies but who else is creating them?

Comments

[Brian Magierski]

Chris,
Couldn't agree more. It seems that SocialText and JotSpot are a couple of examples of web2.0 tools for enterprises. I'm exploring opportunities in this "space", but haven't settled on any one thing yet. BTW - I'm also a trilogy alum (selling chaing, '97-'98).

-- bkm

[Chris Law]

Hey Brian,

I agree that SocialText and JotSpot are some of the rare exceptions.

Love to hear what it is you end up working on!

Chris

[Roy Kim]

Enterprise is a completely different game than consumers. I'm employed by a enterprise company by day, and work on my consumer-oriented project at night, and it is *much* harder to develop for enterprises than consumers.

The factors that go into enterprise project decision making is:

(1) people who use this service tend to be slower technology adopters, how can we make it usable and discoverable?
(2) does it work within the confines of the corporate culture?
(3) will it appease privacy issues? (enterprise companies do *not* like their data hosted somewhere else) enterprises generally tend to be on the level of "mission-critical." they cannot risk not having their technology in-house.

Whereas consumer projects can risk alienating certain subset of users by pretty much ignoring all the previous points, we cannot risk that in enterprise software - it must work for everybody in the company w/o making the IT guy do any work; the IT manager will ultimately have to sign off on any technology acquisitions, and he's not going to sign off on something that won't work for even a small subset of users. This makes it *much* harder to develop a product with a short cycle and release.

Yes, all these technologies should degrade, but that is not the realistic world, especially with a wide array of different browsers and versions to support, especially for start-ups.

I agree with you: enterprise projects have the most upside, but that's specifically why they are not being peddled on sites like TechCrunch - prematurely releasing your product makes your product look bad and gives your competition an upside. There is also no reason why any enterprise software would be peddled on TechCrunch - enterprise software is much better pitched at conferences where you can meet CEO and IT Managers - startups are too cash-strapped to send sales representatives to some other part of the country cause an IT manager thought a site looked cool on TechCrunch.

But that certainly doesn't mean that there are no enterprise projects. You just can't see them.

[PeteCashmore]

Lots of reasons. Most blog readers are also users of these things (hence, they want news about stuff they can use), the communication channels for the enterprise are different (big companies almost always discover my LinkedIn profile before my blog), things move slower in the enterprise (this innovation hasn't fully reached them yet) and many other reasons besides.

Roy Kim says it better than me, but when you think about it, it's pretty intuitive.

One more thing: the best consumer-facing apps will indeed be strong in the enterprise. I'm looking at Feedburner, Pheedo and the like.

[Isaac Garcia]

And Central Desktop....we are 100% about business and are always grouped in Web 2.0 lists.

[Dennis D. McDonald]

Chris:

Relevant to this discussion, I want to point out a recent blog article by a DC-area colleague, Thad Scheer, who is CEO of Sphere of Influence. Thad talks about the harsh realities of selling consulting and project management services related to "web 2.0" to "traditional enterprises." His discussion is at least a partial answer to the question of why you don't see more about "enterprise web 2.0" in the blogosphere. Thad's article is here:

"Monetizing Value of Social Computing in Traditional Industries," by Thad Scheer
http://sphereofinfluence.com/soiblogs/Tscheer/archive/2006/03/21/164.aspx

Coincidentally, I had just finished the following article when I discovered Thad's piece, and it approaches the same topic -- enterprise web 2.0 -- from more of an IT management perspective:

"Who Ensures that "Web 2.0" Software Applications Work Together?" by Dennis D. McDonald
http://www.ddmcd.com/conversationsblog.html