Web 2.1- Right idea, wrong direction

So I blogged a couple days ago about Web 2.1. We are making progress in certain areas. I see others continuing to struggle to get it.

Let’s start with a couple that I am afraid do not get it. I read about the following in MediaPost this morning:

• Twing, a search site for forums
• Yidio, a search site for videos

Right idea, create micro-communities. Wrong direction, creating community around platform verticals (forums, video, whatever…) fails to focus on the customer. I may be very wrong, but is there a large enough micro-community looking for forums on any/all topics?

Instead, think verticals (or horizontals if you are visual and need to see another direction) based on micro-community by interests and affiliations.

Here are two examples of sites where I think they have it right:

• Spiceworks, a free IT tool for small and medium businesses
• Tennis.com, the online site for Tennis Magazine

Spiceworks’ micro-community is a collection of IT professionals with similar challenges, experiences, work flows, configurations, etc. Tennis.com has provided their micro-community a site with news, video, blogs, etc for the tennis enthusiast.

In each of these latter cases, the companies put a customer at the center of their micro-community strategy. The former two put a technology platform.

In the end, the customer will win.