WEB 2.0? HUMBUG. IT’S JUST THE INTERNET.
I was recently asked to answer an intriguing question for a media interview. The question struck me in such a way that it warranted a rather opinionated response. I thought the topic, and my response, would make a good Blog entry.
The question’s topic revolves around the term “Web 2.0.” For those that are not aware of what this term means, or what it’s origin is, here is a quick breakdown as defined by Wikipedia.com:
Web 2.0, a phrase coined by O’Reilly Media in 2003 and popularized by the first Web 2.0 conference in 2004, refers to a perceived second generation of web-based communities and hosted services — such as social-networking sites, wikis and folksonomies — which facilitate collaboration and sharing between users. O’Reilly Media titled a series of conferences around the phrase, and it has since become widely adopted.
Although the term suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, it does not refer to an update to Web technical specifications, but to changes in the ways software developers and end-users use the web as a platform. According to Tim O’Reilly, “Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform.”
To learn more, check out O’Reillynet.com and read how the man himself breaks it down.
The Question I Was Asked By the Media:
What is Web 2.0, as you see it? Is it an appropriate moniker?
My Answer:
“Web 2.0” is a buzz word and nothing more. It is a term used by Corporate America to quantify and qualify their understanding of current Internet technologies and trends. To define the “rebirth of the web” as a socially-driven, on-demand user-centric medium only proves that individuals who haven’t understood the web since its inception are finally beginning to get it, and they need buzz words like “Web 2.0” to do so. The web has been, and always will be, about people and the ease with which people can communicate with one another – for any and all reasons. How people communicate on the web will continue to evolve and it will never cease. Corporate America will always be two, three, or four steps behind because corporations do not control the web’s evolution – individual users do. Their demands, desires and innate drive to improve technology-based communications are what drive the web. Terms like Web 2.0 are then coined so that some marketing director somewhere can justify to his or her boss that implementing a Blog is the best next move for the company. For people, it is about purified, open communication. For corporations, it is about controlled communication and measuring ROI.
Two Pertinent Cases in Point:
Case #1 – Circa 1994-1995, when AOL was still fairly fresh, my friend’s mother was one of the first to be online with a feminine screen name. Near instantaneously after choosing the name, she was inundated with IMs from “men seeking women.” Sounds like a “socially-driven, on-demand user-centric medium” to me, no? And that was 1994-1995.
Case #2 – Starting in early 1996, I was personally using the web for 1-5 hours per day to chat with others in live forum format about music, programs, technology and anything else pertinent at the time. We knew each other’s real names. We stayed in these live forums and left computers running 24/7 for months at a time. We were constantly connected with each other and the world this way. But we didn’t call it Web 2.0. It was just the Net and it still is.