Let me reinforce @lirons recommendation of @ittagroB's piece: killer.

Doesn't answer Eric's request for examples. There are two basics to address: those from the short tail and those from the long tail. Number 1 short tail, first place to focus most resources (unless biz is small): people/resource finder. Zappos is a great company. Oddly, while they totally understand the relevance of data for physical operations, they miss the relevance of data for human interaction -- they want to rely more on F2F -- it's important but doesn't scale. You need both.

The long tail examples are more specific. Leveraging a tweet today, you find them using the philosophy of Pooh -- look for the "bother"s. Those with a high business impact rate higher. BUT, be VERY careful about how this is assessed. There is a lot of 'work' that is not relevant -- it keeps the beast alive in its own neurosis. Better assessments directly attributable to customer impacts.

In reality, a lot of what you need to know about all of this comes out of the conversations. But you cannot FIND them if the conversations are locked into isolated threads (architectures that lock down conversations into projects or communities).

That's natural capitalization of the social network. It was done at all the early Information Architecture Summits (may have been a social norm of ASIS&T events).

First, let me commend you on doing a brilliant job of isolating examples of how scarcity works (particularly for the many who aren't used to thinking economically).

Now for my 'but'...while the isolation is great for clarity of understanding, in reality, it's far more mushy.

Don't think in absolutes. Think in near-absolutes. It's all relative. It is the relative abundance of the internet that pushes the costs to zero. Real costs have to been seen simply as an energy exchange. The incremental cost of storage is simply a form of energy to fuel some additional output -- a 'true' cost is something that comes 'short' of returning value (falls short of EVA).

Based on your words it appears as if you're seeing this with 'separatist' eyes. Clearly, it's not a flawed perspective -- indeed it likely reflects the way most people actually implement E2.0 technologies. But it's all wrong. Based on the way you're looking at it, your assessment is dead right.

They're tools. Their value is defined by their utility (an economic term, FAR more valuable and deeper meaning than "use" -- another reason for my gag reaction to "user"). Utility requires specific contexts: scenarios of use. E2.0 tools are not intended to be 'introduced' they're intended to be 'leveraged' for specific contexts. That means you have to 'follow the energy'. Where are people already? Meet them there. That's where the scenarios begin. It's there that you will find lots of scarcity to be addressed.

The things I'm describing are all part of design -- REAL design (which relies heavily on economic principles of choice). REAL designers are hard to find and most E2.0 initiatives do not include such resources.

You're also asking a very fundamental question that is valid -- because you're effectively saying you can't identify the key point at which good design starts: the question. Finding the question starts with "WHY?" -- why aren't people able to...? why are they...? Even for people who go through this effort, they may not interpret what they are finding correctly (of course there is never a 'right' or 'absolute' answer to anything -- but getting 'close' is the goal).

The biggest challenge is that (as I've shared with @VMaryAbraham before) there is no 'list'. Ok, there probably is, but it would be a list of heuristics and from all the presentations I've ever given I can tell you one thing certain -- most people cannot handle dealing with 'heuristics' -- they typically assign the label "too conceptual".

That's the problem. As I noted in my comments at the end of this discussion (http://tinyurl.com/mn9p46), businesses lack a focus on the key things that are now critical for their success: thinking and conceiving. These are different mindsets from the ones most predominant among them: designing and doing (be sure to note in my comments, however the typical 'designer' role in business today).

This is a multifaceted topic.

Let's talk about how external companies help worsen the situation. I was reprimanded at EDS for participating in social networks -- never mind that I had a personal identity in the industry before I was hired. But for companies like Forrester, individuals typically have access to their publications and the related conversations because of the contracts provided by their employers. Whenever I posted a comment, the comment was labeled with my name and my company -- there was no option for me to NOT include the company. With that situation, it does look as if I'm speaking on behalf of the company.

Bringing this to the attention of the Social Media person at Forrester was met with complete denial -- that there was a problem. I explained that the only option for me was to not participate in the conversations, which was likely to occur with others, as well.

This of course was secondary to Forrester calling EDS to point out that I had made comments about one of their analysts publicly (without reference to my employer). This backhanded political maneuvering is not only old-school, it's irresponsible in a 'transparent' reality.

Separated apps is the antithesis of anything 2.0. Thanks for bringing this one to our attention.

I guess that should mean a lot more to me, coming from someone who's published a book on the topic : ) Thanks

Gosh. What a great surprise (sadly, I don't get notices of these comments, unless I comment : ) Thanks for all the great comments and for noting the points that were of particular value for you.

This post is a synthesis of a LOT of artifacts I've collected for years in my 'experiences' basket -- so I'm only worthy of credit for reporting it. I wrote it more for me than you -- I have to keep coming back and read it to remember the important points.

It also includes a lot of 'short messages' that I prepared for a self-running piece done for UK's Department for Work and Pensions "2.0 is the Net" (the animation is choreographed to the music file so it will appear REALLY slow without the music; thanks to Microsoft you have to download all the files and launch it via pptview.exe for the full effect -- might not be worth it, but it's HIGHLY animated, you can't just view the pages of the ppt either) <a href="http://www.box.net/shared/zbj31a9coo" target="_blank">http://www.box.net/shared/zbj31a9coo

Bill: There are some great first-hand findings in here that you've used to 'season' the story. While I'm familiar with Spigit and have interacted with them, I did not have the great info about the SaaS predominance for their markets. That said, Traction is NOT SaaS-based. They do not maintain server farms and indeed shun doing so. Their software loads on any machine. I believe they do so well because they offer something that requires context-relevant immersion to truly understand its potential -- so they readily make their software available to do that (unlimited starter license is free for 5 logins/ 5 spaces) .

I'm looking forward to your next piece and will be leveraging the various implications of the 'utility' model as well. Thanks.

For accuracy, it was Josh who introduced the phrase "Let's make failure cost effective" as he reflected on what Jim was saying.

A few critical points Joe makes, services are critical outside organizations so SOA is not just enterprise-relevant.

Mentions the potential for "LIFT" in this economy, facilitated by newer technologies: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter.