For a while I have spoken to various operators and supported various workshops trying to promote the idea of mash-ups and the general mashing and openness culture prevalent in many websites in these “2.0″ days. Such topics were also raised at the Telco 2.0 brainstorm, especially during the Digital Youth track, which I attended on the second day (chaired by Tomi Ahonen - who else?)

Slowly the lightbulb is illuminating in the minds of some operator strategists and thinkers, some of whom have the controversial “innovation” in their job title. Some of them are openly singing the “Web 2.0″ hymn. However, much skepticism remains before “going 2.0″ big time. A lot of hype goes with the “2.0″ territory. The skeptics always spoil the broth with their chilly commercial concerns. “No one is making money from Web 2.0….” Or, “What’s the business case?”

That latter question is almost always an accountancy question, which really means “What’s the direct P&L for this stuff?” That’s a sensible and important question, but it’s also a fallacious question. Direct P&L is made from products and services. Open APIs and mash-ups are not services - they are increasingly the “language” of connected digital services. As such, the revenue question doesn’t apply. To the digital savvy users out there, the data tendrils of RSS feeds, mash-ups and widgets are how a service speaks, not what it does. This “2.0 speak” is simply what digital savvy users expect. A website (or, probably more accurately, a brand) not speaking the lingo will, before long, simply appear odd - even if these tendrils don’t necessarily offer much.

A parallel trend is the eco-language spoken by so many products these days, like the orange eco-friendly carrier bags in Sainsburys. The service is ultimately the same, but the brand has adopted the new eco-language. Before long, brands not doing this will appear old fashioned, odd and unattractive. A brand manager may remain skeptical of the tangible value of “going green”, but simply can’t afford to ignore it any more.

Sooner or later, T-Mobile or O2 or some operator will cross the rubicon. They will figure out that try as hard as they might, which many of them have, there is no golden future based on keeping all the users’ data under lock and key. They will bite the “2.0″ bullet and might offer, for example, a textual voicemail summary as an iGoogle widget, or some other web-plumbed feature. The business case is brand relevance to digital savvy users, who are increasing in number. The investment is brand equity. Of course, sooner or later, an interesting idea will pop up - from somewhere unexpected - and there will be real money to be made in “2.0 speak”, just as there is now money to be made - and lots of it - in all manner of eco-language products.

The bottom line is that operators have to invest in making their brands talk to the web generation. It is a sunk investment to avoid becoming a sinking ship.