Web 2.0 - from Buggy Whips to Whatever’s “Next”
Web 2.0 and Network Marketing: Moving from Buggy Whips to Whatever’s “Next”:
In the 1991 film “Other People’s Money,” actor Danny DeVito plays a memorable role as “Larry The Liquidator,” a ruthlessly opportunistic corporate raider who threatens to take over the family owned New England Wire and Cable business.
As Larry is in the process of taking over Gregory Peck’s business at the stockholder’s meeting, the character delivers the following gem about losing market share in a shrinking market:
“You know, at one time there must’ve been dozens of companies making buggy whips. And I’ll bet the last company around was the one that made the best goddamn buggy whip you ever saw. Now how would you have liked to have been a stockholder in that company? You invested in a business and this business is dead. Lets have the intelligence, lets have the decency to sign the death certificate, collect the insurance, and invest in something with a future.”
To use DeVito’s example in “Other People’s Money,” the modern automobile supplied the death knell to the horse-and-buggy industry. And to extend the analogy even further, the same can be said for the evolution of the Internet over the last 15 years. Many observers have separated the Internet revolution into two distinctive parts – the horse-and-buggy early days (web 1.0) and the technologically superior modern automobile (web 2.0)
So what is Web 2.0? The phrase “web 2.0″ itself is a chameleon of a concept, taking on a new meaning and appearance to each group that attempts to describe it. For some, it describes the business revolution in the computer industry “caused by the Internet as platform.” According to Wikipedia, Web 2.0 is a “trend in World Wide Web technology, and web design, a second generation of web-based communities and hosted services such as social-networking sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies, which aim to facilitate creativity, collaboration, and sharing among users. For IBM social-networking analyst Dario de Judicibus, web 2.0 describes “ a knowledge-oriented environment where human interactions generate content that is published, managed and used through network applications in a service-oriented architecture.”
At its core, it describes the evolution of the Internet over time. A web 2.0 model is simply using new techniques and approaches to solve old problems. Like the maturation of a boy to man and the move from horse-and-buggy to automobile, web 2.0 is simply the next step in a process.
So how does a web 2.0 approach apply to the word of network marketing? One of the lynchpins of the web 2.0 model is the effectiveness of user-defined social marketing websites. Here are just a few examples of a web 2.0 approach you can use to expand your network marketing business.
· Social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace
· Content sharing and link submission websites like Squidoo, Pownce, Magnolia, Delicious, Furl, Mahalo, Digg, StumbleUpon and Spurl
· Blogging websites like Squarespace, WordPress or Blogger
· File sharing sites like YouTube, Flickr, Limewire and I-Tunes
Remember, the goal in using these websites (and this type of technology, in general) is ultimately about expanding your network, … and not about spending all of your time in front of a computer screen in the warm glow of an Internet trance.
In the end game, the success and failure of your MLM career may hinge on your ability to adapt to a changing marketplace. You must decide whether you want to dig in your heels and resist change … or move with the times.
Keep your MLM approach fluid. By incorporating social marketing and a web 2.0 approach into your business model, you are not only evolving your business but the network marketing industry as well. Ultimately, you have to embrace the technology or the technology will pass you by. Be a leader and a follower. Don’t be a buggy whip maker in a time of automobiles.
Kate: Someday, we’ll smarten up, change some laws, and put you out of business
Larry The Liquidator: You can change all the laws you want. You can’t stop the game. I’ll still be here. I adapt
If you’re looking for ‘how-to’ guides for incorporating web 2.0 into your network marketing business, check out the free site The Renegade University
By David Gignilliat
For NetworkMarketingUncut.Com
Filed under All, Articles, Network Marketing
