Making Money on Web 2.0

Remember those heady days of the Internet boom, when start-ups with a big idea, a kicky name and a loft full of programmers could land millions in venture capital just for the chance of making money? Those days are over, with millions of dollars on paper gained and lost.

Now, we’re in the Web 2.0 era, when Internet platforms allow users to create and modify each others work. Social networking is one of the most popular applications of Web 2.0 and is the fastest growing activity on the Web. Networks like Facebook and MySpace are struggling with the old dilemma: how to turn users into dollars.

Josh Bernoff is author of "Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies." He’s vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research, and joins Word of Mouth to talk about how companies can make money on social networking sites, where people prefer to interact rather than absorb.

(Photo by premiardiego)