I am just back from the Web2.0 Expo of Berlin (5-8 November). Besides sharing "Choosing the appropriate RIA technology" with Marco Casario (that was the title of our joint speech) I also had the opportunity to attend several speeches during the 3 days expo.

Two words, or concepts, particularly caught my attention because they were mentioned recurringly throughout most of the speeches. They are:

1.widgets

2.social commerce.

I already knew what they are but I did not know that, mutually related in a circular manner, they are going to play a fundamental role in the web 2.0 ecosystem. I will try, as usual, to syntesize the matter:

• the possibility of initiating successful communities is (nearly) over. There is, in fact, a wide number of communities already in place, and it is increasingly difficult to tap on people’s shoulder and ask them to join a brand new community

• widgets represent the future of communities because they help the users get the preferred contents and services out of the communities. Therefore widgets permit selective participation to several comunities at once

• social commerce (or we-commerce) represents the future of e-commerce; this model, in fact, will give the online commerce sufficient visibility thanks to active support from users, each participating to the editing of contents related to the products being sold, and thus helping to promote such products whithin the communities which they are part of

• social commerce is therefore based on communities, so widgets are destined to play a role in social commerce as well! And it is easy, after all, to think of widgets helping people sort the desired items out of the multitude of proposals existing on the web.

By the way: www.zlio.com is an actual example of a social commerce business model already in place, while www.stardoll.com is based on an extraordinary business model which, gearing the belonging/social needs of humans(remember Maslow?) is capable to sell virtual staff for real money!