The Web is still in Beta

You hear the 2.0 and 3.0 labels used so much to describe "The Web" that you can actually start to believe it.

But it got me thinking, if you step back and look at the state of the web as you would a product, can it even be considered to be 1.0 yet?

I think the 1.0/2.0/3.0 mentality put too much emphasis on the "techy" point of view, and not enough on that of "normals" (See Chris Dixon's post "Techies and normals").

I'd make a case that what is commonly referred to as "Web 1.0" (late 90's - the "bubble" period) should be considered "Alpha". In this phase everyone was trying straightforward ports of functionality that you can do offline and bringing it online. The result was too much investment, weak business plans, etc., etc. Most people bothering to read this probably know it well.

For most of the past decade and up to now we've had massive adoption of online services and much broader demographics coming online and using services (such as the distribution that Facebook has).

There's no doubt that the online experience has gotten better and better, and ever more useful services are becoming available (and ever more intricate and involved time sinks). But I think this period should be considered "Beta", and that's still where we are.

I think the main problem is that the web is still a set of disjointed tools that us creators are still trying to figure which should be built, and regular users are still trying to find.

That's a fine state to be in, it just isn't "2.0".

There's a few areas that stick out to me in particular (some around booking travel or the struggles of the "news" industry), and one we're building a company around is online advertising.

The Alpha phase of the Web saw flashing gifs, popups, and "punch the monkey" type ads. The Beta phase has seen Google massively capture the value of the advertising dollar with a truly revolutionary model around a service everyone uses (search).

The problem has been the sucking sound of money flowing away from the publishers in this model. Before the web hits 1.0 it needs a model where publishers can have a substainable business. We're creating a platform that will do just that, putting that sucking sound into reverse, and allowing publishers to capture the value of their audience. Our little part of getting the Web to 1.0. :-)