New Media Trends

The other day Julius took a picture of the Wascator café in Copenhagen, and when he got home, he uploaded it to the mitkbh.dk cityguide, a website where anyone can enter remarks and reviews about cafes, restaurants, venues etc. in Copenhagen – and upload their own photos.

Now on Google Maps
Today, if you go to the newly opened Google Maps Denmark and search for the Wascator café, you’ll find not alone the location of the Wascator café – you’ll also find Julius’ photo. This is a result of an equally new partnership between Google and mitkbh.dk

Reversed mashing up
What’s really interesting about this is that mitkbh.dk originally was build around maps of Copenhagen with dots of and info about all the places, the mitkbh.dk users had commented. Maps drawn using free mapdata and -technologiy from Google.

(In this respect mitkbh.dk is not a all unique. Lots of sites around the world have been integrating their own (mostly usergenerated) content with Googles maps in this way. And at least 3 other Copenhagen City-guides does exactly the same (as I’ve written about in 3 urban guides to Copenhagen - all usergenerated (and powered by Google maps). And the technique actually has a name: “mash-up” it’s called.)

Content flows freely
So now it’s not only Google that offers maps to other sites – it’s also other sites offering content to Google. Content which in this case in created by not the site itself, but a user of the sites. That is: content in these cases flows freely between users and sites, and to and from sites.

Value detaches from content
The value that users gets from visiting one of these sites no longer seems to be attached to the individual chunks of information they find there, since this is tending to be the same: On mitkbh.dk you find Google Maps, and on Google Maps you find mitkbh.dk pictures.
The value of the sites to the users seems more to be attached to the way the content is arranged, and the exact makeup of the features offered to him. If you’re able to make a site that offers cool selection of content to fit particular needs of distinct groups of users, you’re in luck. If you also give the users tools which are relevant to their purpose of visiting the site, you might be in for the win.

Relies on advertising based revenue models
There’s a fundamental shift in business models involved here. Engaging in business based on free flow of content means giving up the idea of owing, buying and selling and embracing the idea of sharing and monetizing the not the content but the attention of your audience, your users. Engaging in business based on free flow of content means turning to revenue streams – that is: money –flowing from advertisers that want to get in contact with your audience.

The spirit of web 2.0
Of course all this only works, if more parties are willing to give the models a shot. You don’t just want to give away – you want to share, and in order to share, you’ll need someone else to share with. The Google-mitkbh.dk partnership is only one example of how this potentially deadlock-catch 22 situation has been broken. That we really have been pushed into a situation where sharing content is reality.

Actually one could argue, that the theme of sharing is a major component of the whole web 2.0 movement. That the logic: yield a tenfold return from giving stuff away, is an integral part and one of the main veins of web 2.0. This is at least what I have previously suggested. You can read more on this in my The Coca-Cola ethic and the spirit of web 2.0).