Archive: Interview with John Battelle

John Battelle is the author of bestselling book “The Search” about Google and its (open) business strategy. He is chairman of Federated Media, an advertisement network including boingboing and other top blogging site. OpenBusiness spoke to him about the absence of business models in the web 2.0 space, the need to come up with definition of “Open Data Services” and what his favorite web 2.0 services are.

OpenBusiness: John, you and Tim O’Reilly have been coining the term web 2.0 and we are certainly witnessing an explosion of creativity. Hundreds of platforms and services facilitating all sorts of collaboration, user generated content etc are being launched. Yet astonishingly many of these internet based platforms do not seem to have a business model. Most of the services are literally “free” (as in free beer). So why are people starting these “free businesses” and where do you think this is all going?

John Battelle: I don’t agree that they do not have a business model. The model is a bit more complicated. First, create a great product/service that attracts an influential audience. Second, engage that audience and prove you can grow it. Third, leverage established business models like advertising or subscription to start to drive revenue. And lastly, listen to your users and learn what they want based on how they interact with your product/service. Once you figure that out, you will find new ways of making money from adding value to the service.

OB: You wrote a great book about “Google” and in many regards it was (and is) the leading example for starting a great service, without thinking about how to make money. Is this the way to do it now? Thinking like an engineer, producing solutions to problems and then worrying about if there is a demand for the solution?

John Batelle: Yes, that is part of it. But not all of it. Not every service fills a real need, even if it’s cool or seems right at the time. The audience/customer will prove it out over time.

OB: Back in August Tim O’Reilly wrote: “We need a set of guidelines for open services that is as thoughtful and provocative as the original open source definition”. I think this is a crucial point. If people and their data are at the heart of web 2.0 maybe we should discuss the limits of “openness”. Do we need distributed ownership and investment structures? What are the ethics, which make community driven sites sustainable?

John Batelle: I agree, the outlines of this model are not yet entirely bounded. But therein lies the opportunity. Startups and large companies alike are pushing and trying new things. Google comes to mind, as do companies like Root.net. I believe a core ethic is that customers/consumers should have ownership rights to the data they create in concert with service providers, for example.

OB: Could you tell OpenBusiness readers your favorite web 2.0 services?

John Batelle: Sure, that’s easy! Shrook, because I am a Mac user, and it’s a great RSS reader. Pandora.com, because I like how it asks me for my input on music (I am just starting to use it, I also love MusicPlasma) And Google search (just search for now) because it’s the original Web 2 company/service. Amazon as well, to be honest…

OB: OpenBusiness as an initiative is not just focussing on “business” – we are interested in how for example entrepreneurs are using Creative Commons, or OS principles in creating new services and organizations. So in many regards we are interested in “ethical approaches”, but it seems that “social innovation” and “social entrepreneurship” are not being married with web 2.0 principles. Where are the innovative health care aggregators, 3rd sector community/social network sites?

John Battelle: Not? I disagree. I think it’s totally endemic to the space! Give it time, we are in the early part of this movement. Rome was not built in a day or a year or a decade…