Only a few short months ago, there was a widespread belief that the world was changing into a fully immersive online experience where user-generated content would undermine all traditional business and creative models. The old world order was dying, the old rules were being ripped up and replaced, and Web 2.0 would take over.

Businesses feared that they were not employing sufficient Web 2.0 components—they needed to have blogs, create collective wiki resources, give power to the people—and they were told they were not doing enough to attract a sufficient pool of digital talent liquidity, which would be the only way to save their business as they knew it.

"Out of the blue", or at least unexpected by many, asset bubbles popped, and the global boom fuelled by cheap lender-generated credit and financial engineering wizards (otherwise known as "money 2.0") has turned to global bust and depression according to the pessimists or only recession and downturn according to optimists. The new financial world order—"it's different this time"—turned out to be true, but not in the way those who touted it expected.

Can the millions of user-generated content creators and the rest of the iPod generation continue down the same path as the budgets dry up, redundancies loom and cheap consumer electronics and technology goods become a distant memory? Burgeoning numbers of bloggers, talkative Twitterers, digitally socialised networkers and wiki contributors demonstrate that adoption of the concepts is not an issue, but the real challenge is identifying where the money will come from. Many have felt it was "out there", now they will have a chance to prove it—or not.

While times were positive, the land grab of market share with the prospect of an IPO was enough—just look back at some of the companies who sold out earlier in the 'noughties'. But as conditions worsen, especially significantly, monetising directly, with actual revenue or other specific measurable values will be more important than future potential.

So what is the impact on the Web 2.0 digiterati and the new user-generated world order?

Some pointers to what might happen come from the last burst technology bubble, dotcom. At one point it seemed that no idea was too extreme and no business plan could fail, but fail they did. The bust did not mean that the internet had failed, but that dot com propositions had to have a more solid basis than simple e-exploitation of the network—they had to have a solid business case.

In this case "solid" meant having a measurable revenue stream so that income exceeds expense, rather than hoping that at some point the future valuation of assets would outweigh the burn rate of spending to get there—in other asset markets such as housing this can be seen in the speculative buy-to-let model.

Much of the business case for Web 2.0 has been made up from the prospect of incremental but still slightly nebulous "value"; customers will be able to provide authentic feedback, the wisdom of the crowd can be captured, new or otherwise hard-to-reach audiences will be touched, and so on. These are all good positive attributes, but to be turned into real benefits, they need to be quantified and, where possible, measured.

Not every benefit can be measured directly in terms of an exact short term return on investment and this is particularly true of many of the more interesting Web 2.0 concepts. In these cases, those with an offer need to think more specifically about each value they bring, and how each in turn applies to the business. It might be that an idea implemented in one part of the business saves significant effort or cost from a different area. Justifying investments in one area with cost reductions elsewhere is not easy, especially when it spans different personal objectives, departments or agendas. But it is not impossible, and with independent support and awareness at the most senior levels suitable projects can be demonstrated to have a profound impact. Many of the most successful dot com businesses stemmed from this type of forward thinking.

There might be new value created that would not have been easy or even possible with other approaches—such as reaching new markets or targeting different customers—but this extra reach or benefit needs to be quantified, so that some value or cost can be ascribed. And finally, there is also the benefit of reducing risk or insulating the organisation from external factors or shock, for example certain technology investments might make it easier to absorb the changes in costs of oil and transport, or reduce dependence on a third party. The critical metric for success will be identifiable impact on aspects the business leaders find to be important, rather than the technologists.

Simply saying "we've leapt on the Web 2.0 bandwagon" will soon start to sound like "we've got a web site" in the late 1990s. For some it will have been an expensive waste of money as it doesn't tie into the rest of their real business, for others the value brought will not be recognised, and despite being an invisible success, future projects will be shelved. Far better to get the message across that the investments are being made not to slavishly chase after a new technology hype cycle, or to pacify a younger generation of workers, but to add real value to the business.

The "wisdom of the crowd" may seem to have made an unassailable case for the whole Web 2.0 proposition, but it's worth remembering that other "wise crowds" roamed the streets during bloody revolutions and caused runs on banks or panics on stock markets. There are times when such wisdom needs tempering with a plan, some care or attention, and realistic, measurable objectives.