I recently read through a great post on the CTO Blog, one of my favorites, about some of the issues that executives in the consulting industry are starting to find with the whole Web 2.0 thing.
Namely, what if not everyone is in the same community?
The MySpace concept is now all through the web with communities springing up with all sorts of different functionalities. I am an avid user of LinkedIn, but I also have a page on Facebook of course. They were talking about Dopplr a site which allows you to post travel plans for your contacts to see. The benefit? They get to see if you can get some "face" time at any point.
Great idea, but I won't be moving over there. A lot of my network is already on LinkedIn and I am not asking them to move over. I get two or three requests every two weeks to join one site or another these days, but I really don't want to water down the entire networking experience and potential for me.
This got me to thinking... whats the angle here for consulting opportunity?
What we need in the Web 2.0 space right now, or very (very) soon, is a platform for Web 2.0 type applications. Let's call it Community-as-a-Service (Ah no.. another one!). The idea would be something like the Force.com idea where developers are given access to the stuff in the background so that they can create their own modifications as they like.
Not the small apps like in Facebook, (Where you can already pull in the Dopplr schedules by the way) but something altogether larger - enabling people to grow their own micro communities with their own specific functionalities. (As opposed to the not-really-scalable stuff in Facebook right now)
For example, CapGemini (lets say) gigantic consulting behemoth, covers most of the world (and what it doesn't cover doesn't matter) with consultants all over the globe. The LinkedIn base functionality gives them a good way to stay in touch initially, but they need to take it to a new level.
So, building an in-community ability to post travel schedules, meeting schedules, share track record stories, recommend restaurants and other places all over the globe, vote on them, organize for virtual (Second Life) meetings and - who knows what else...
I think this is what Web 2.0 needs now, and I really hope that it is LinkedIn who does it. I really don't want to change social network and try to drag all of my contacts with me to another universe.
But, the real thing that hooked me with this idea is that it is an extraordinary opportunity for consultants right now. We missed, most of us, the SaaS revolution, and we are in danger of missing this boat also I think.
So, a service offering that consults on , designs, builds and implements Web 2.0 customized networks based on one of the existing majors would have to be a great Community-as-a-Service starting point.
Is anyone doing anything like this now? I am trying to find out what the IBM Lotus Web 2.0 suite does, but I think it is a little removed from this.
Late update: Just after posting this I read a post on TechCrunch about a product called Mahalo, could be a good starting point?
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