The sheer amount of digital data floating around the world is nothing short of staggering. Billions of reports, spreadsheets, files, client lists and other sensitive and abundant data are sorted and stored all over the world. During almost the entire history of digital data, businesses have been at the forefront when it came to pushing demand for more storage and better systems.

However, the great technological revolution has moved well beyond the personal computer… Times are changing. Consumers are hoarding data like never before — and we’re not talking about a handful of Microsoft Word documents, either.

Web 2.0 — the advent of a truly personalized, interactive Internet experience — is upon us. People are hoarding more information than ever before to make the Internet their own. Countless pictures are uploaded onto social networking and photo sharing sites every day. The same is true with video content. And then there are audio files and podcasts…

Is it any wonder that Google bought the video-sharing site YouTube for more than $1.6 billion? The growth potential for a venue that offers unlimited content to unlimited people is immeasurable…

Web 2.0’s Changing Landscape

People are taking more digital pictures every year. They’re ditching CDs and buying all of their music over the Internet and storing it digitally. And the trend isn’t stopping there. Videos, invitations, podcasts… Everything is purely digital and it’s all being consumed at a record pace.

But all of this information isn’t just magically sitting out there in cyberspace, waiting to be searched, viewed and shared. It has to be stored. In fact, storing and organizing all of this data is a multibillion-dollar industry.

According to one industry report, the digital content collected by individuals could surpass the billions of bytes stored by the corporate world in the next 10 years. It’s a data storage revolution. And plenty of sites that cater to the sharing of video, audio and other files will need new and better ways to keep and deliver this content as it multiplies in the years to come.

At small-cap and venture capital conferences, there always seems to be one or two of these Web 2.0 companies. They all seem to have the answer for the future. But, we haven’t yet seen any of them exploit it for profits. Well, we may just be on the verge of that…

In a recent meeting between all the Agora Financial editors we had last week, our marketer in collaboration with our executive publisher described the future of Google search. It combines all the tools that Google has been acquiring and integrating since its IPO in 2004.

When this is finally implemented, you will see pictures, videos, blogs, maps, and anything else related to the search, along side the website results. The company is beta testing it as I write this. We could be mere weeks away.

Ask.com is already doing this, but when Google gets involved, everyone notices. After the world sees Google’s new approach, web 2.0 might truly get the jump it’s been waiting for.

Keep an eye out for this one…

Best,

Greg Guenthner
March 4, 2008

Greg Guenthner

Greg Guenthner heads up Agora Financial’s small-cap division and is the founder of one of the only independent OTC research advisories in the industry. A graduate of George Mason University, Guenthner joined Agora in 2005 after several years as a journalist. He is managing editor of Penny Stock Fortunes and Bulletin Board Elite.

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