Web 2.0 and The Financial Industry
The Web 2.0 disruption is driven by social and business drivers and the increased level of broadband connectivity. Web 2.0 is about enabling consumers through community collaboration and social aggregation. New solutions to old problems are being discovered and embraced by a new generation of internet savvy consumers who believe in a global marketplace rather than a geographically constrained one. OnLine communities are emerging like Prosper that may displace portions of the FSI. Prosper is an online community that allows individuals loan money to other individuals. The power of the individual is also being amplified through membership in online communities and Enterprises need to understand how to engage at a community level as well as a personal one. Another example is a Hong Kong Web 2.0 startup called Bullpoo (so named because they believe that Bull markets are always followed by Poo markets). Bullpoo allows users from around the world to collaborate and share investing knowledge through blogs, discussion, and virtual trading. Bullpoo calls this "social finance" and considers itself as a type of social networking platform for the finance industry.
