Web 2.0 isn’t social media really. Web 2.0 is when consumer habits changed – when it became fully two-way – when some people began to figure out how to monetize their efforts. When will 3.0 come along? As Barry put it, we are walking through Death Valley now given the downturn in the economy and watching traditional media get diced and reborn anew. Currently, there is faster disruption than there are newly developed models to follow – thus, a pause.

With that in mind, today’s start ups and venture capitalists seem to be operating under the premise of “if they come – we will build it” (think Twitter, Facebook, YouTube). The current business models are suffering a creativity drought. One key exception are “Virtual Goods” that are being used by companies like Facebook, where users can buy and sell credits for applications, services, games, etc. This is creative monetization.

Times continue to change but, with that we’re getting more niche focused. Example: 1960′s saw broadcasting, 1980′s saw narrowcasting, 1990′s saw microcasting and today in the 21st century we’re heading toward nanocasting. This is reshaping the media industry and shows that every change (or downturn in our case now) leads to opportunity for those who watch trends. Fragmentation breeds more niches to fill. The key now is to survive then thrive.