I absolutely love Robert Scoble’s latest interview of Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook.
It’s an excellent summary of how the increasingly open and conversational nature of the web is creating huge opportunities and challenges not just for Facebook — but for everyone, including millions of small business owners and one dentist in particular.
Zuckerberg, a huge believer in the power of the open web, states very clearly that the future value of Facebook is not the site itself — but rather the collection of applications and experiences that are built on top of the social graph.
Overtime, Facebook itself, much like the broader web, will become increasingly open and decentralized.
Soon the value of Facebook will come not from being a member of the site — but from being a participant in a series of connected conversations spread far and wide across the web.
So what does this mean for millions of small business owners? What if you’re a car mechanic, a plumber, or a dentist like Mark Zuckerberg’s dad? What if all you’re trying to do is get online, get found, have conversations, and get leads? What are you supposed to do?
The first thing you should do is embrace it by finding simple tools that enable you to actively engage in conversations with customers and prospects across the entire web wherever consumers hang out.
Commerce has long been driven by a series of open conversations. The web is increasingly so. If you’re an SMB it’s time to find yourself a simple and inexpensive tool to engage the open and conversational web.
