Stowe Boyd, author of /Message, presenting today at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference identified a model for designing Web 2.0 applications. Build for the individual first, then for groups of like minded people and then focus on the money making activity for a “market”.

Stowe claims the Internet is increasingly becoming the Third Space, our primary place for discovery and third behind home and work for our favorite place to go. There we find people which is a means to help us find ourselves “at the still point of the turning world”.

The biggest issue for providers raised in the session was building the need for users to create content for enterprise purposes. Using social networking for business connections provides an easy to use profile creator, while generating little if any valuable information beyond the profile. Incorporating the content creation from the normal business activity is critical to succes with these tools.

Stowe is an early and continuing user of Basecamp. He describes it as a very good web app, while not necessarily a good Web 2.0 application. The inability to aggregate projects under one user name limits it’s use as a networking tool. Tying the id to a project is a poor design principle.