Remember The Graduate when Benjamin Braddock was advised to go into plastics. The clip is here. It seemed like a safe bet at the time - and it was.
Today the web maybe "the new plastics." It seems like every brand is building a new site or microsite. The Internet feels like Dubai. Some are big, ambitious projects. Others are smaller initiatives like a blog that a small group can manage themselves.
I don't expect organizations to stop building sites anytime soon. However, the Picture-in-Picture Web (what some would call the web services promise of "Web 3.0") is coming on strong. And I believe most brand web sites may not matter in 2012 - unless they have satellites that make the mother ship stronger. The Attention Crash (or what Iconoculture calls "choice fatigue") is accelerating the pace of change. Fred Wilson has a similar point of view.
The leading players on the web all see the train coming. They are wisely creating APIs and turning themselves into plug-and-play services, not just big destinations. YouTube is just the latest to do so today. Amazon has S3. Google has OpenSocial and an extensive library of APIs. As does Microsoft. Facebook is allowing its applications to live outside the site. Twitter is an API first and (eventually) a business model second. Finally, the booming widget economy shows the promise of small content that can go anywhere.
These are the leaders. But everyone - including marketers - will need to think of their online brands not as sites but as portable services that can go anywhere and everywhere the consumer wants. Without such appendages, no brand will ever be able to break through the online clutter such unlimited choice offers.
译文:
未来属于网络服务
记得电影《The Graduate》里，本刚毕业，父亲的朋友建议他从事塑胶行业，一个很有前途的行业。这个片段在那时像场必赢的赌博，然而它也的确就是。
今天网络行业可能就是片中正在发展的塑胶行业。每个品牌都在建立一个新的站点或小型网站。因特网像迪拜，雄心勃勃的项目是它的大型经济中心，其它那些小团队就能管理的博客则是它小一些的拓荒地。我并不想看到机构组织在短期内停止正在构建的网站，但是被有的人称作Web3.0网络服务承诺的“图图”网络时代正在强势到来。我敢肯定到2012年，他们如果还没有卫星让自己的妈妈船变得强大，大部分的品牌网站将会变得无足轻重。而“信息爆炸”正加剧着这场变革的到来。对此，Fred Wilson也有同样的观点。
网络行业的引领者都看到了这辆网络服务列车正轰隆隆的向我们驶来。于是他们智慧的创造了API，但并未因此满足，继续将它转变为即插即用服务。YouTube就是今天第一个这样做的成功案例。Amazon有S3，Google有社会化通用平台API和API扩展库，如同微软做的，Facebook正在让它的应用服务扎根网外。Twitter开始只是一个API应用,接下来也是最终将发展成为一个商业模型。总之，正在迅速发展的窗件广告经济证实了小信息无孔不如的断言。
这些都是网络的领袖。但是每个人包括营销师，都要意识到在线品牌网站不是作为一个站点存在，而应该是一个消费者何时何地需要时都能提供服务的接口。如果没有网络服务做附带品，没有品牌能够穿越这片无边无际错综复杂的网络信息丛。