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Posts tagged Web 2.0

Green Shoots of Finovation

By John Persico on July 6, 2011

Within the US$1+ trillion global professional services industry, the finance sector has recently looked susceptible to a growing chorus of start-ups looking to strategically rethink finance’s core business models and value propositions.  Internet entrepreneurs over the past few years have embarked on a journey to challenge financial services giants in providing consumers with a greater range of choices in money management.
 
Following in the successful footsteps of the Mint, new emerging leaders – like Wealthfront, LearnVest, Check24 and Wonga (the last three conspicuously backed by Accel Partners) – have helped recalibrate the expectations of “personalised finance” by tailoring their business models, engagement methods and success strategies to specific target socio-demographic, psychographic and cultural niches.
 
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Tic Toc, Financial Model O’Clock

By John Persico on June 13, 2011

Why Web 2.0 will find Financial modeling next

A recent piece in the National Journal by Tankersley and Hirsh, “Neo-Voodoo Economics”, encouraging American’s to think more boldly about new growth and markets, rather than simplistic rethreads, prompted  me to think about a few new opportunities in this space.  A plethora of industries have been radically transformed and reconfigured by the emergence of new business models made possible by web 2.0.  Netizens (a term commonly used to describe people actively involved in online communities) have rocked the foundations, processes and relationships (and wallets) upon which they were built over the past 25 years – learning, working, media and everything in between. Inroads have begun into even the most sacred of sectors – such as religion, politics, property and professional services.
 
However, often these seismic transformations are as subtle, as they are gradual.  A compelling case could be mounted that the financial modeling industry – part of the 700,000 firms in the $1 trillion+ professional services industry – may be next to be transformed by Web 2.0.
 
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World’s Top Tools for Learning – but where is Microsoft Excel?

By John Persico on June 6, 2011

A recent list of the World’s Top Tools for Learning is a stark reminder of how rapidly the educational ecosystem has moved beyond the traditional classroom. Most young professionals seem to have readily embraced the ability to learn quickly and interactively formally and informally, in a real-time environment that was utterly unimaginable only a decade ago.
 
Many leading online educational tools are built around rapidly augmenting micro-level communications to a global-wired audience. Four key tools from the top of the list include:  Wikipedia – the largest knowledge sharing encyclopaedia ever created; Twitter – the turbo-charged, real-time communication network; YouTube – the world’s largest video library; Slideshare – the emergent PowerPoint sharing powerhouse. The principles underpinning crowdsourcing resonate in a similar way – democratising discrete, micro projects Read full article Read full articleby reaching a global, collaborative community (e.g. 99 Designs, Innocentive, Amazon Mechanical Turk)

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