Blog Posting Number 1 – Web 2.0
The problem with Web 2.0 is much like the problem with Web anything else. We need a way to separate the wheat from the chaff or, dare I say it, the content from the crap. A Bing search this afternoon produced 2.16 Billion hits, that’s a lot of tag rich-client tagclouds. (Warning on the prior link.) Even Tim Berners-Lee is not overly impressed with the title Web 2.0 and the hype.
“Web 1.0 was all about connecting people. It was an interactive space, and I think Web 2.0 is of course a piece of jargon, nobody even knows what it means. If Web 2.0 for you is blogs and wikis, then that is people to people.” (2006)
In the three years following this quote, we still don’t know if Web 2.0 is a rabbit or a duck. (Anonymous, N.D) Looking at the technology we can find a huge list of outstanding tools for helping people do their work and become connected with each other. The question remains, is it truly a new version, or just a repackaging of existing technology. In the late 90’s shortly after HTML version 4.0 was released Dynamic Hypertext Markup Language (DHTML) became the rage. Funny thing there was no such language. According to w3schools.com “DHTML is NOT a language. It is a TERM describing the art of making dynamic and interactive web pages. DHTML combines HTML, JavaScript, DOM, and CSS.” (N.D.) Perhaps the Web 2.0 could better be described as a movement, one that seeks use the technology of web to bring people closer together and mitigate the social isolation felt by people in their home offices as they telecommute around the world.
Many Web 2.0 tools serve very well in this role. Delicious, ZOHO, Google, YouTube and their ilk make the world a much smaller place. I remember a study years ago about how long it took a joke to move from the US East coast to the West. In the day of rail a joke would take months to make the trip by traveling salesman. Cars cut the time to weeks, and the Fax machine to hours. Now with Facebook, e-mail and YouTube it would be just moments. The web has taken over from the barbershop in spreading jokes, rumors and other time wasters and propaganda.
As a confirmed cynic, I want to know who pays for it all and who gets the money. Let us not forget, money is what it is all about. Click through ads, free versions of software that are cripple-ware or time limited (the first taste is free) or harvesting addresses to sell to the spammers. The list goes on and on. Even Craigs List where everything is free, except for job postings in San Francisco, New York or Los Angeles pulled in over 10 million dollars in 2004. (Kornblum, 2004)
References
Anonymous. (N.D.) http://www.naute.com/illusions/rabduck.phtml. Retrieved August 9, 2009
Anonymous. (N.D.) http://www.w3schools.com/Dhtml/default.asp. Retrieved Sunday, August 9, 2009
Berners-Lee, T. (2006). http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/podcast/dwi/cm-int082206.txt. Retrieved Sunday, August 9, 2009
Kornblum, J. (2004). USA Today, September 28, 2004 Retrieved August 9, 2009 from http://www.craigslist.org/about/press/anet.
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excellent observation. You're right, the signal to noise ratio is such a huge problem (to throw another metaphor into the mix). Because the web has become it's own creation without a governing, top-down authentication system, the problem has to find it's own way to filter that is just as community based. Harold Howard Rheingold talked about this process in his book, Smart Mobs. It's an interesting problem. And obviously this idea is what's behind Digg.com. :-)
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