Having been involved as a co-owner in a previous internet start up, now being run by our CEO. I had officially stopped dabbling in the internet in 2003 and had a baby in 2004. Not being able to squash entrepreneaurial blood, I had ideas flooding to me and I began a hard copy journal capturing them. (Don’t ask me about the ‘mango slicer hehe)
In May 2005, whilst in Sydney, reading a ‘Wired’ Mag, I read a short excerpt on Wikipedia. What Wikipedia is “the largest free encylopedia online”. The exciting catch was that any visitor to the web site could edit and update any topic like ‘Comanche Indians” with the view to making it more accurate. My idea and possibilities of how Wikipedia used client/server technology mulled together the week I returned home to Perth.
The concept of chatting, buying and selling, being a member to a site, making friends on the internet via discussion groups, is now a well understood practice. But, what about a site dedicated to allowing users make changes to the site’s content themselves, and posting articles about specific topics they enjoy writing about, for the world to see? This new radical trend to allow users the ability to be in control of a community was shaped was in part, liberating and amazing.
I was buzzed. Social sharing was a great idea. At that time I only knew of Wikipedia.org with it’s radical way of keeping an encyclopedia relevant and updated in real time. It seemed like there was an innovation happening. Back in May 2005, I began to fashion together a business plan. My tarket market for a social sharing site, were non-techies and spending $5k on research from marketresearch.com, was THE scariest thing I have ever done.
I got my husband buzzed, and more and more research began to happen during that year. He stumbled on the term Web 2.0 and how this space was beginning to heat up.
We got into this space without realizing it and the opening of our eyes into this new world of Web 2.0 has made it even more exciting. It’s all the things my husband and I would dream about. Now we are nervous and excited about our new start up, which we are about to launch shortly. We are confident it will excite our intended target market and become a sustainable company.
What is Web 2.0 in simple terms?
