WWW 2.0

What happens when Thomas Friedman (The World Is Flat) meets Tim O’Reilly (Web 2.0)? Paul McDougall chronicles his thoughts over at Informationweek

Late Thursday I took in a panel on global business that featured Thomas ‘The World Is Flat’ Friedman and Tim ‘Web 2.0′ O’Reilly. It was hard not to come away with the feeling that what we’ve been thinking about as revolutions in their own rights–offshoring and the participatory Web–are really just evolutions that have set the stage for a more profound change that will occur when those phenomena are combined. We’re set for a “whatever can be done, will be done” future said Friedman.And there’s a lot that can be done when you mix technologies that make online collaboration frictionless with those that enable that collaboration to take place across the globe. O’Reilly said that Web 2.0 is all about “building systems that harness the network effect so that the systems get better the more people use them.” Well, suddenly there’s a lot “more people” when India, China and other emerging countries that are just starting to get fully wired (thanks to outsourcing) enter the equation.Under this scenario, Web 2.0 becomes WWW 2.0–that is, it’s the truly worldwide version.

It isn’t just about outsourcing. It’s all about “bestsourcing” – harnessing the ubiquity and reach of the web for “better value”, not just “cheaper cost”. It’s no longer about farming an activity to a cheap location offshore; even within the US, you find huge variations in the costs of doing business depending on your location. Add in productivity and culture differences, and the costs could even out.

With collaborative working in virtualspace, location becomes irrelevant; “bang for the buck” makes much more sense. Nor are you constrained by available resources; you just add as required, scaling up or down seamlessly with the best options you can find.