Going Pro: New Jobs Being Created Around Web 2.0 Companies

Jason Calacanis has written an interesting post on his reasoning behind offering to pay top bookmarkers from Digg and Reddit to bookmark at Netscape's new news site:

Why the Web 2.0 and media elite are so upset about paying amateurs (or "I'm sorry, does Mike Arrington work for free?") - The Jason Calacanis Weblog
However, some of the folks who blog are great writers and some of the folks who put pictures on Flickr are amazing photographers. Those folks get paid for their work, the masses do not--and that's just fine. Everyone is entitled to make their own choice in these matters. Some folks write for the love of it and don't want to get paid, some of us consider it our trade.

Going Web 2.0 Pro

To me, this raises the question, "When can someone go pro in a Web 2.0 world?" The obvious answer: "Whenever someone will pay for your specialized skill." The more things change, the more they stay the same. This doesn't necessarily mean people are quitting their day jobs to bookmark news stories full time but it should provide some interesting side income for newly acquired and discovered specialized skills.

Here are ten new specialized skills we'll see people charging for:

1. iStockPhoto Consultant: Helps people maximize the revenue potential of their photos.
2. Flickr Photo Consultant: Helps people improve the quality of their photos using Photoshop and other tools.
3. Professional Reviewers: Hired by Amazon, Judy's Book, Expedia, etc.
4. AdSense Consultants: Help people maximize their site's AdSense revenue.
5. RSS Consultants: Help people optimize their use of RSS.
6. Video Syndication Consultants: Work with video producers to syndicate content to all online video serving platforms (YouTube, Google Video, Veoh, iFilm, etc., etc.)
7. Social Networking Consultants: Help businesses make best use of social networking sites like MySpace, Digg, Reddit, etc.
8. VoIP Consultants: Help businesses sort through the many VoIP options on the market today.
9. Web based application consultants: Help businesses choose and use appropriate web based software, such as Writely, Google Spreadsheets, Webmail applications, etc.
10. Syndication Consultants: Help businesses determine where to syndicate their content (Google Base, Oodle, Shopping.com, hreview?) and implement syndication.

What new specialized skills do you see emerging around Web 2.0 companies?

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