The title of the post should really be “Upending the Traditional Website Development Model”. This week, we launched Breaking Shopping News.com and Breaking REO News.com to prove conceptually how Twitter and the new real time micro-blogging and communication tools can be used 1) for local advertising and 2) local reporting of the bank-owned housing markets, respectively.

Simply put, we believe and want to prove that using Twitter to break news through an application like Breaking Shopping News.com, even if it is advertising, is compelling to a local community. And to reinforce our intention, we offer the template and business advice to anybody who can see how to adapt it to their local market. It’s like a free web franchise.

Here’s a table that explains the evolution of how websites have been built. Many developers have already adopted the 2009+ build it quick model as seen by the proliferation of Twitter based apps. How many are giving their ideas and apps away for others to use?

And btw, thank you #domus #301… your support and feedback helped to build these business models and we’re excited to work with you to get these new sites up and running in your locales.

As much as we love Twitter, Web 2.0 Expo seems stuck at what Twitter has wrought, and can’t seem to focus further than the next Twitter app. WSJ Digits reports that the presentation on Twitter business models was the most popular, and the best comment they could muster is “Twitter is the canary in the coal mine”. We intuitively know this about Twitter’s knack for monitoring trends and real time perceptions. It’s concept rehash.

Rafe Needleman reports that half his walk-up pitches were Twitter-related. Conceptually Twitter is so simple, the new apps built around Twitter also seem like they were created on a cocktail napkin. What would really rock the Twitter and social media boat would be the launch of counterintuitive applications that used Twitter as, say, an advertising vehicle (gasp), especially when everybody is now cringing about how Twitter is being overrun by MLM and spamming mega-following bots.

My take on the future of Twitter: The Twitter user base will begin to compartmentalize based on the various ways Twitter is used. Twitter apps for advertising will flourish because it is a powerful branding medium. Twitter spammers are easy to identify and may eventually segregate into their own societies like ghettoes. Other societies based on industry and geography will become well defined. Twitterers who want to use Twitter with small groups for more intimate communication will continue to do so.

In other words, Twitter will embrace laissez faire. As Twitter grows and user follower bases expand from 100′s to 1,000′s to 10,000′s organically (or not, depending upon the user’s preference), everybody will begin to mind their own business. Twitter societies will start mirroring the virtual worlds of Second Life, where like-minded participants find each other for whatever… and others don’t seem to notice the bizarre stuff unless they go slumming and friending themselves into these worlds.

TODAY’S ONLINE CONTENT FATIGUE

Web 2.0 could be described as a phase in the evolution of the Internet that facilitated individuals in creating content within the constructs of social websites (blogs) and social networks (as participants). User-generated content was the New New Thing when it first appeared refreshingly on blogs (in 2002 blogs were being recognized as media), MySpace (2003), YouTube (2005) and Facebook (in 2006, it opened up beyond colleges).

Now, the discovery phase of Web 2.0 is over. Thinking bird’s eye level, all the content that needs to be online is now online. For example, there are literally thousands of articles (and videos) about how to raise your credit score, and using Google isn’t really going to help you find the best or most appropriate advice. Conclusion: content creation is now not as highly valued when it’s already ubiquitous and en masse.

However, one kind of content is still prized; it’s in the taglines of CNN and Huffington Post: “Breaking News“. Breaking news, in all its forms from reporting to analysis, holds the most social and economic value – world society reacts, trades and competes with New News.

MEDIA 2.5 – POSITIONING AS THE HUB OF BREAKING NEWS

The mainstream media finally figured out that journalist content creation also didn’t need to be salaried. Breaking news can now be reported by anybody in Mumbai or Gaza. Media measures its worth by traffic, and solidifying the market position of being the hub of Breaking News is where Media 2.5 is headed. That means having producers like CNN’s Tori Blase on Twitter‘s front lines receiving and monitoring news stories and alerts from her Twitter network. This reinforces CNN’s status as the breaking news hub when it has dispatches at the borders of citizen journalism. News sourcing is social, every news producer must do this to stay connected with the new citizen news sources and be relevant in the future.

WEB 2.5 – EMPOWERING WEB 2.0 INDIVIDUALS TO CREATE BREAKING NEWS MEDIA HUBS

The New New Media Properties have none of the mainstream media overhead and infrastructure for collecting breaking news – Huffington Post, Politico and video-based Funny or Die are the collaborative media that Web 2.0 facilitates. All they need are writers/video producers who want syndication, and what aspiring journalists/producers will turn that opportunity down? These sites have become talent agencies that trade talent exposure for content quality, and in turn elevates their online presence and traffic.

The window is open, but nobody sees it’s open yet. Any organization, company or even a team of like-minded individuals can now create Politico-type blog network/breaking news distribution properties cheaply by leveraging Web 2.0′s blog and website design applications. A key distinction needs to be made in developing a media property – the content being created and distributed must be quality controlled to attract traffic. Social networks built on platforms like Ning won’t work due to noise and content credibility arising from any yahoo who wants to be a participant. The mainstream media understands this distinction and have been augmenting their journalistic offering with a J-School trained blogger corps (examples: NYT, SFGate), basically trading in the name “column” for “blog”.

Web 2.0 facilitates individuals. Web 2.5 facilitates the development of collaborative websites. The real estate industry in particular can leverage Web 2.0 tools to create collaborative websites that position real estate agents as local “reporters”. Properties like Homescopes leverage Web 2.0-savvy real estate professionals to break local news like the details of recent home sales only they would know about. Seth Godin mentions today that real estate brokerages should create local e-newsletters… this idea aligns with the idea of real estate agent as reporter.

You wouldn’t buy GM stock today without checking Marketwatch.com, and consumers will soon understand they won’t put an offer on a house (in this weird market!) based on month-old data. Breaking news is the killer app.

WEB 2.5 – LEVERAGING THE MEDIA HUB TO ATTRACT TRAFFIC (AND ONLINE FAME)

If you want evidence that content creation is taking a back seat to content distribution, see Justin.TV, an online streaming media application initially launched to allow the masses to chronicle their lives in video. Unfortunately, most people’s 24-by-7 lives are excruciatingly boring, and Justin.TV has evolved into the leading do-it-yourself online Cable Access channel network that facilitates anybody who wants to “program” online TV. Naturally, the most in-demand content are the free broadcasts of subscription streams of sporting events and movies… value-based content is king.

And just so content creators won’t complain that I’m positing the “death of content”, on the contrary, good content creators will now flourish, and gain access to exposure and fame much more easily with the proliferation of the new Web 2.5 content distribution channels (and let’s just call them media).

Media hubs/channels are the antidote to content fatigue by facilitating relevant filtering for discovery of great stuff. Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop and Jason Calacanis’ Mahalo are based on nothing more than the collaborative insights of what is online good “breaking news” content. Somewhat autocratic, but a simple formula. It’s no coincidence that both Guy and Jason have attuned themselves to real time trends as well-networked Twitter celebs.

What I’m trying to say is – the opportunity is build these media hubs is wide open and easy to do… the challenge is to convince your network to participate in your hub. This is the spirit of post-Web 2.0.

New York Times states Mainstream Media News Outlets Start Linking to Other Sites. It’s a portal strategy to leverage their print and TV brand names, and keep them relevant as comprehensive news sources. The advent of Web 2.0 news aggregation communities like mainstay Digg and Social Median have legitimized news aggregation and sharing across a reader community. MarketWatch has a reader community.

In June, I published on my sister site a slideshow explaining how MSM is moving from a content generation business (journalism) to a content distribution business (media by definition).How Mass Media is Embracing Social Media

Opening up Twitter Networks

Now, MSM should develop their Twitter network and show their readers which Twitterers are news generators. The NYT is still won’t link out (follow other newsmakers), but the SF Chronicle does:

We in the social media implicitly understand that the mainstream media readership are still getting their feet wet when it comes to finding, reading and subscribing to blogs (unless they look like MSM like Huffington Post, or are blogs residing within MSM like the NYT).

I discovered a contrary example in a Washington Post article – Making Connections: Web 2.0 Creates New Ways for Agents, Home Shoppers to Find Each Other. Such an article (with extensive quotes from Web 2.0 luminaries and bloggers) would resonate prolifically within any online real estate forum, or real estate oriented social network like Active Rain, but 10 days after the article published, I submitted the sole comment:

I’m postulating that bloggers either generally don’t monitor the mass media or don’t find it worthwhile to establish conversations within their space. Frankly, the Washington Post and other publishers offer a conduit between their consumer readership and the real estate bloggers, so it behooves the bloggers to participate within their sphere. The mass media is still not linked into the blogosphere.