Journalism 2.0 - Knight Citizen News Network

Chapter 2: Web 2.0
of a content page and display ads that are keyed to match any of the prominent
terms on the page. If a user on an affiliate site clicks on an ad, Google (again)
charges the advertiser and then kicks an unspecified percentage to the publisher
of that site.
In 2005, Google reported more than $6 billion in advertising revenues (source:
http://investor.google.com). One year later, the company broke the $10 billion
mark for 2006 ad revenue. All this without hiring a single sales rep.
Journalists also love Google Maps, which is a great example of Web 2.0, because
anyone can use the code to create new services based on the maps. For example,
journalist/computer programmer Adrian Holovaty took a feed from the Chicago
Police Department and combined it with Google Maps to produce the award-winning
site chicagocrime.org. Other Web sites have mapped cheapest gas prices, free
wireless Internet hot spots, bars and restaurants with happy hours and more (see
Google Maps Mania at http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/).
This openness contrasts greatly with companies such as Microsoft and AOL that
dominated the age of Web 1.0, where everything was proprietary and controlled.
Microsoft’s MapPoint, for example, hit the market a few years before Google Maps.
But since it was developed without open access (you couldn’t use it without a
Windows machine and it wasn’t free), programmers did not rush to build tools
with it.
“The Web naturally has a certain grain, and Google is aligned with it,” author Paul
Graham 2 wrote and was quoted in “The Long Tail” by Chris Anderson. “That’s why
their success seems so effortless. They’re sailing with the wind, instead of sitting
becalmed praying for a business model, like the print media, or trying to tack
upwind by suing their customers, like Microsoft and the record labels.”
In 2006, MySpace became the most popular Web site on the planet in terms of
page views. The site claims more than 100 million users (as of September 2006)
and served nearly 39 billion page views in November, according to comScore
Networks. News Corp. purchased the site in 2005 for $580 million.
By registering and filling out profiles, users create the content. They use “blurbs,”
“interests” and “details” sections to present their online persona, and communicate
with blogs, photos, video and comments. Teens and twenty-somethings
flocked to the site almost immediately. While it gave them an easy way to communicate
with one another, it also has drawn criticism as a haven for pedophiles
and sexual abusers, creating fear and angst among parents and creating another
area for the legal community to monitor. That said, it has also grown into an
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Journalism 2.0: How to Survive and Thrive