The web has shown the unique ability to progress, advance, and grow at an infinite rate, and at a ridiculous pace.  As this maturity takes place, we are sometimes forced to play catch up in order to stay current and utilize all of the web’s offerings.  This familiar scenario is exemplified when looking at businesses that operate on the web.  Since the popularization of e-commerce, businesses have found the internet (and rightfully so) to be a terrific platform for conducting their trade.   Nowadays, nearly all businesses have some sort of presence on the web.  You would be hard-pressed to find  a company without a website or at least some sort of online contact information.

Unfortunately for businesses, the quickly advancing web has now made this sort of online existence, “old school”, if you will.

The web has gone through a pretty large transformation since the first dot-com bubble in the late 90s to early 00s.    What was once a static and structured architecture is now a dynamic, user-driven platform.  The internet is now centralizing around users and their activity instead of solely spotlighting the businesses that provide the content.  The web has and continues to evolve into a huge social arena, connecting users across the vast landscape of the web.

So, how has this ’social web’ changed companies and their online presence?

It is not acceptable for companies to remain hidden behind their “corporate veils” anymore.  The web has given everyone a voice, and it is imperative for these businesses to start participating in the “conversation”.  We are seeing more and more companies utilizing social tools like blogs, Twitter, and various social networks in order to engage their current and potential customers.

Recently, Facebook found themselves in a sticky situation as they updated their terms of service (ToS).  A massive uproar soon followed.  Articles and blog posts filled the internet about the company and its unfair terms.  In response to the uproar, Facebook temporarily went back to its older ToS, and is now asking for user feedback while it drafts its replacement ToS, now known as its “Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.”

These are the types of actions that truly define a democratized business.  It stems from listening and interacting with customers.  Businesses who do not participate are at a huge disadvantage.  The evolution of the web has brought consumers together and has put businesses in a unique position.  In order to succeed, it is critical for businesses to start tapping into this network, giving their customers a voice, or else they stand a real chance of losing out to companies that do.

What is interesting about the Facebook ToS debacle is that the story broke immediately and spread to major news sources almost instantly.  Of course, Facebook, being the largest and most popular social network, will tend to receive lots of attention.  But you would assume from the number of stories written that this was an earth-shattering situation for all Facebook users.  Well, in fact, it turns out that only about 0.006% of Facebook users cared about this story!  I can only imagine what would happen if a majority of users were interested.

Point is, businesses must offer customers a voice.  Businesses who democratize and knock down their corporate barriers stand to gain a lot of attention and respect from the general audience.

I figure I’d compile a list of websites / services that have caught my attention recently.  These are sites that cover a variety of topics and uses.  Hopefully I can introduce you to something of interest…

…and don’t worry…there is nothing in here that starts with the letters “T-W-I-T”

Screentoaster | www.screentoaster.com
record your screen activity

Have you ever wanted to record your screen activity?  Well, even if you haven’t, take a look at Screentoaster and you might just find a reason.  With a super-simple, virtually download-free setup, you will be producing online screencasts in no time.  You can even make a quick vid for your mom showing her how to check her email.  Screentoaster is still in beta, so go fetch yourself an invite, and start “toasting”.

Favtape | www.favtape.com
create online “mix tapes”

Straight outta San Diego comes an online mecca for creating online “mix tapes”.  A perfect place to listen to your own unique brand of music.  Favtape even gives you the option of importing your Last.fm and/or Pandora playlists, putting you in charge of your virtual turntable (aka mouse and keyboard).  With the ability to “tweet-out” what you’re listening to over your social networks, it adds a nice touch of sociability to your tuneage consumption.  Highly recommend checking out.

Grader.com | www.grader.com
what is your internet grade?

The guys at Hubspot have developed an extremely useful marketing tool for your website, press releases, and twitter profile.  Most famous for its Twitter Grader (www.twitter.grader.com), Hubspot allows you to explore your Twitter ranking, those with similar interests, and who’s who in your neck of the woods.  Using their website grader (www.website.grader.com) is extremely useful for those of us who are looking to increase its traffic and effectiveness to our website(s) (and who isn’t?).  Check it out, these guys are out to help you.

Posterous | www.posterous.com
post blogs/tweets through email

A must for all bloggers.  Posterous is a clever service that allows you to blog from anywhere that you have email access.  Simply email post@posterous.com and it will instantly create a blog post, where the email’s subject becomes the post’s title and the body of the email becomes the body of the blog post.  Set it up to your Twitter account and your smartphone becomes a tweet machine.  Very cool and I guarantee you will use it from time to time.

Dropbox | www.getdropbox.com
sync files, stay ‘live’

Receiving a bunch of press and recently nominated for the 2008 ‘Crunchies’, comes Dropbox,  a tool for syncing files across multiple computers.  Dropbox wants to ensure that your files remain syced up despite any editing or mistaken deletions.  Very cool and seamless product.  Check out the their video, and you will realize why something like this is so useful.  “It just works.”

Animoto | www.animoto.com
create sweet slideshows

Do you have a bunch of photos?  Do you want to do something cool with them?  Enter Animoto.  A pain free way to produce a cool slideshow of your digital memories.  Created by tv and film producers, Animoto gives you the professional and stylish look that you wouldn’t be able to achieve by yourself.  Leave it to the pros, upload your images, and create a masterpiece.

After recently rejecting Facebook’s $500 million buyout proposal, micro-blogging phenomenon, Twitter has moved forth acquiring and hiring former O’Reilly CTO Rael Dornfest. This adds fuel to the debate on whether Facebook and Twitter are rivals competing for the same online attention, or if they are instead, two totally independent online communication / information outlets. These are two very interesting platforms, no doubt, with large and promising futures ahead.

It’s very interesting to analyze these two successful (not always measured in dollars and cents, mind you) businesses, and how very different they are. Most notably are their different approaches to openness and complexity. Facebook has operated, so far, in a complete “bubble,” remaining fairly separate from the rest of the web. I believe that this community that Facebook was able to build on the internet is one of the biggest draws, especially at its inception regarding the college campuses that it was penetrating – it served as a virtual campus, sheltered from the “real world,” or the web, in this case. Now, compare this to Twitter. Twitter embraces the web and everything it has to offer, and operates with virtually no boundaries. This coincidentally, has been one of Twitter’s greatest factors to adoption; its openness.

Facebook boasts a very complete, complex profile system chock full of applications, photos, videos, albums, messages, status updates, news feeds, you name it…chances are Facebook has it. The brilliant execution of all these features has made Facebook the top social network to date. As we take a look at Twitter, they retain a completely different mentality, taking the less is more approach and focus on simplicity. And it is this structure that has contributed to Twitter’s success.

It’s very interesting to see how two platforms such as Facebook and Twitter can both be so successful and yet operate so differently. Now, obviously, Facebook is far larger than Twitter, so a true comparison of the companies may be a bit premature for Twitter’s-sake, but it is definitely worth keeping an eye on…and Facebook clearly has. One look at Facebook’s ‘Status Update’ feature and its introduction just shortly after Twitter started to develop a following is testament to the very simple, yet effective platform that Twitter has developed. Which brings me to my final point: What Twitter has that Facebook Doesn’t…

And the answer, is quite simple : Twitter has the ability to connect an individual with anyone, anywhere, at anytime. The same cannot be said for Facebook, or most traditional social networks for that matter. Twitter has removed the need to “Add Friends” and effectively connects individuals regardless of specific networks or communities. To give a very small example of what I mean, Google Analytics reports 8% of my Facebook “Friends” have visited my blog off of a facebook.com referral. Now that number jumps to just shy of 60% when comparing visits off of a twitter.com referral. The point is, Twitter is designed to communicate, network, discuss, and share content on a much more individual level. The stripped-down, bare bones service helps Twitter break the boundaries often created with complex networks.

I think the most interesting thing is that both of these services can coexist without necessarily infringing upon each other (for now at least). It would be hard to find someone without a Facebook account that is on Twitter, and rightfully so. Facebook is an absolutely ridiculous social network that will continue to grow and dominate mainstream. With that said, I can see Twitter accounts being distributed as commonly as email addresses are today — something that Facebook accounts just don’t have the flexibility in executing.

The number of technology startups is quite staggering.  This, of course, is a result of virtually no barriers to entry and a relatively low production cost that’s associated with tech startups (namely dot-com businesses and services).  But what separates those popular (mainstream) startup services from the “soon forgotten” ones?

It’s a matter of stickiness…But what makes something sticky?

There are a number of factors that contribute to the “stickiness,” or staying power of an online service.  The first lies in the power of early entrants.  Not surprisingly, it helps to be the first to accomplish something new.  Twitter is a fine example of an online service who is feeling this competitive edge first-hand.  Launched in 2006, Twitter has seen tremendous adoption from the online community, legitimizing the micro-blogging platform it has essentially invented.  Since its launch, there have been many imitators, but none have seemed to garner the attention that Twitter has been able to obtain.  Digg falls into this category as well.  After popularizing the social-bookmarking and content-sharing platform, Digg has built up a dedicated userbase.  Many imitators have launched similar style websites, but have been unsuccessful in gaining the same following.  Being first often makes you sticky…initially atleast.

The second “stickiness” factor is execution.  If you aren’t fortunate enough to be the first to enter the game, you had better execute.  Google exemplified proper execution when they created a better search engine than than their competitors in the late 90s.  Facebook was not the first social network, but it was Facebook’s execution that ultimately made it the #1 social network that it is today.  It goes without saying, stickiness clings to the services that deliver.

The third factor is simplicity.  There is no reason for web services today not to be super-intuitive.  Internet users today expect to be up-and-running in a matter of minutes.  What is the reason that Myspace has taken the backseat to Facebook in terms of total unique visitors?  In my opinion, it has a lot to do with simplicity and ease-of-use.  Facebook absolutley crushes Myspace when it comes to social networking because of the differences in design and functionality.  Simplicity is a huge stickiness factor.

The fourth factor is of stickiness is not entirely controllable, but very important; that is, the network effect.  Today’s web 2.0 applications are only sticky if they are able to attract a huge network of users.  This network effect, which has been debated and analyzed time and time again may be the most important stickiness factor of them all.  If the users aren’t there, the service will likely falter.  A service needs an active community to remain sticky.

Can you think of any other factors that contribute to a web services stickiness?