Interactive Web Agencies in the Web 2.0 World

Count this as the first of my serious of “thinking aloud” post. I wanted to start a debate/forum/discuss (whatever the term might be) on how the web, and more interesting the fundamental belief system of Web 2.0, is going to change the thinking of creative agencies. Interactive web agencies cannot, and should not, aim to simply extend the business model of brick and mortar creative agencies into the Internet space. This will not work. In fact, I dare say it is a definite recipe for failure.

The belief system for Web 2.0 is collaboration and creation on a global basis with tools that are increasing becoming free. Web 2.0 is all about communities. Due to the “globalness” of such communities, any creation done by these communities is going to be on par, if not better, than the work that comes out from within the closed walls of any company. There are many examples of this – encryption algorithms, software such as Joomla – you name it. And best of all, such creations are free.

And since the day will come when all creations that exist on the Internet becomes free, the big question is, where is the money in all this that will drive enterprises?

The answer to the above question will be the Holy Grail for interactive web agencies to seek going forward.

P.S. Have a look at this cool site: http://www.wix.com/

P.P.S. Jonathan Schwartz gives a keynote at the 2008 MySQL Conference and Expo called “What is Sun’s Agenda” talking about open source, Sun and MySQL.