The Social Web: crowd power
These are interesting times. We're all trying to figure things out, 'star gaze' and bounce off each other.
There's a lot of theory about the social publishing and what I like to label 'emotional' search.
The phrase 'social surfing' (del.icio.us, Yahoo360, Digg.com) conjures up numerous ideas for web collaboration and community that haven't even been touched on yet - imagine 'social buying', where users actively visiting an e-commerce site could, via a small app on their desktops meet each other, discuss the pro's/con's of the product and even 'group buy' to bring the costs down. Ebay pits buyers against each other, 'social buying' lets them gang up together. I am sure some of you may know of tools that do this already.

The idea was first came about in web 1.0 (that big bubble) by companies like GroupTrade, PriceLine, etc. But the buying process was controlled by the seller - so buyers never get true visibility of each other. Same goes for those mind-numbing TV channels, Bid-up TV, QVC and tat-for-dollars (I made that one up). To make the idea really take off, you've got to let consumers play the system, they need to 'gang-up', they need to really use their buying power in a fun way to get something better.
Ebay is fun, but it's buyer against buyer. What would happen if a couple of buyers could agree their bids and who was going to win - and help each other find another product for the one that missed out.
Disrupt the disruptive business!
There's a lot of theory about the social publishing and what I like to label 'emotional' search.
The phrase 'social surfing' (del.icio.us, Yahoo360, Digg.com) conjures up numerous ideas for web collaboration and community that haven't even been touched on yet - imagine 'social buying', where users actively visiting an e-commerce site could, via a small app on their desktops meet each other, discuss the pro's/con's of the product and even 'group buy' to bring the costs down. Ebay pits buyers against each other, 'social buying' lets them gang up together. I am sure some of you may know of tools that do this already.

The idea was first came about in web 1.0 (that big bubble) by companies like GroupTrade, PriceLine, etc. But the buying process was controlled by the seller - so buyers never get true visibility of each other. Same goes for those mind-numbing TV channels, Bid-up TV, QVC and tat-for-dollars (I made that one up). To make the idea really take off, you've got to let consumers play the system, they need to 'gang-up', they need to really use their buying power in a fun way to get something better.
Ebay is fun, but it's buyer against buyer. What would happen if a couple of buyers could agree their bids and who was going to win - and help each other find another product for the one that missed out.
Disrupt the disruptive business!