You may think you have heard altogether too much about web 2.0. But in fact, it's like seeing a big boat slowly move across a lake -- you can hardly believe the size of the wake when it finally hits shore. In my usual Agatha Christie / Miss Marple way, I hope to draw some interesting ideas from some applications you've seen or heard about.
Instructables
Here's a personal favorite: Instructables. There are instructions from ordinary people here on how to do everything from avoid having to sort laundry to building your own Computer Numeric Controlled Router from scratch. I'd really love to have one of those, but it's a bit beyond -- actually WAY beyond -- my assembly abilities. Here's my own modest contribution to the pool of learning. The site is extremely easy to use. Explore only at your own risk, because honestly, if you have a creative bone in your body, it will take you half the day.
This site is primarily built around visual instruction for things that have a physical world presence. Like laundry, lathes, earrings. I haven't seen any instructables yet about how to set up a trust fund. But why not, really?
Imagine cross-breeding Instructables with banking and investments. What we see today are a lot of bulletin boards that have disjointed information provided by investors and home budget gurus. What if this kind of information were more carefully harnessed and structured?
Implication of all of this: as information about how to do things continues to get easier and easier to find, by itself, it won't have much market value.
What this means for you and your service business:
--> you need to keep raising the bar on the knowledge and skill you are selling. Because low level knowledge and skill is free
--> you should be thinking about ways of taking existing platforms and leveraging them for your own content. Get out there, get in the conversation!
