Web 2.0… is people!
After deciding to “get wid it” and embrace Web 2.0 Ricky changes tack and argues (or raises a “trivial gripe”) that Web 2.0 is just Web 1.0 in the emperors new clothes:
In short, what we’re seeing is not Web 2.0, but Society 2.0; we’re witnessing the ability of technology, led by the Web, to link people together in new and interesting ways. The Web was just waiting for the right conditions to spring into brilliant life, like a dormant Wattle seed waiting for rain before sprouting and then bursting into full bloom.
And he’s right. However, technology isn’t doing the linking. People are doing the linking (and blogging and flickring and deliciousing). People are discovering new uses for Web 1.0 technology and appropriating it in new and interesting ways. It’s a new way to use an existing technology but it’s a new way that fundamentally changes how we think of the old technology.
[W]hat some are calling Web 2.0 is nothing more than the result of a propitious set of external circumstances rather than a re-engineering or evolution of the Web itself.
But that’s what’s so interesting, Ricky! The change in how people relate to the fundamental technology behind the web has opened up a whole new set of possibilities, a whole new conversation about what the web is for. The way in which a whole set of unrelated technologies have been loosely assembled to create something much more than the sum of the parts. The technology has stayed basically the same, but the way in which people think about it and use it has changed. And that’s worth a version number increment.
8 comments on “Web 2.0… is people!”
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For once, I think we’re more or less in agreement on something! (Yay!) What has happened to the Web in recent years is fantastic, and these changes have been driven by people, as you say. I think that was pretty much what I was trying to get at in my post. So you’ll get no arguments from me on this one, except to ask if you start using a turkey baster for purposes other than basting a turkey, is it a turkey baster or turkey baster 2.0?
Hooray! I think we were often in more accord than it seemed.
Your turkey baster metaphor is very leaky.
Web 2.0 is the web beginning to realise the potential that it always had. People actually using it to collaborate and inter-operate in the way that has always been threatened, but not properly delivered.
That said, there’ll continue to be a lot of simple web apps that will still be killer-apps because of their simplicity. That the web can now do things greater than text on a page is great, but there’s still plenty of space for text on a page.
On a related note, if Web2.0 is People, and Soylent Green is People, Web2.0 = Soylent Green? Has that day arrived? Already?
I thought the turkey baster analogy was right on the money, to be enjoyed by adults and children alike; a bit like the Simpsons.
I think fro summarised the gist of my article very well in the first paragraph of the comment above. And I too agree that there’s always going to be a place for plain old static web pages.
Oh, and I forgot to add that I think we agree a lot more often than we disagree, Ben. I can be very dramatic sometimes!
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[...] Web 2.0 is about poeple – it is a new way of using the old technology. Is it an appropriation of an old technology to find new and interesting ways of using the web 1.0 that fundamentally changes how we think of the old tecnology. … The way in which a whole set of unrelated technologies have been loosely assembled to create somthing much more than the sum of the parts!” [Ben Kraal in his blog] [...]
[...] the cool new things that are happening on the Web these days warrant a version increment. I left a comment on that post in which, as unlikely as it sounds, I drew an analogy between the Web and turkey [...]