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News & Updates - Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Web 2.0: Another Old Concept Revived

Clikz picks up on Yahoo's announcement that it is "offering every small business with a physical U.S. address a free, five-page Web site. Those sites will automatically be integrated into Yahoo! Local search results."

"As more and more consumers rely on the Internet for information about their neighborhood -- from finding restaurants to plumbers to dry cleaners -- local businesses are realizing the value of reaching potential customers online," said Paul Levine, general manager of Yahoo! Local.

If this concept sounds familiar to you, that's because it is (familiar). Part of our exclusive piece for M.I.T Tech Review today is called "What's Old is New Again" - and the above announcement certainly falls into this category. One of the more striking aspects of the Web 2.0 is the familiarity of its business models - we've seen many of them before. Some of the early models died off with good reason, but others needed time to ripen.

This time around, we'll see if a more fortuitous combination of market timing, resources, and execution can actually result in success.

Read: Yahoo! Offers Free Sites to Small Businesses - [Clickz]