Web 2.0
A myth exists in the web friendly community that a new day is rising on the internet. The new day happens to look a lot like yesterday, with dotcommers wildly optimistic about the power of the internet. And when we say power of the internet, we of course mean the power to make money. Lots of money. Hordes of money. Huge globs of money. The kind of money that can't possibly support expectations; the kind of money that lets a few savvy moguls get rich, and crashes the market on everyone else, and their cheesy domain names.
But the term "Web 2.0" isn't entirely bad, and isn't entirely without merit. The internet has definitely progressed and definitely evolved during the last few years. A guy I've never heard of before named Paul Graham summarizes it well, saying the web today is about democracy, not abusing users, and interactive internet applications. Tim O'Reilly, credited with having coined the term, agrees, simply saying web 2.0 is about people, where web 1.0 was about commerce. The new web is loaded with AJAX applications like google maps, blogger, gmail - ok google everything - and takes advantage of the fact that most people use the internet for social reasons, whether it be keeping in touch or networking. Web 2.0 commerce reflects this trend to, as more and more of the revenue is based on non-intrusive advertising and trend gathering. "Crowd-sourcing", the idea of using the normal web-driven routine of the masses to do work, like crafting their own encyclopedia, is the proven business model of the day.
Skeptics of the "web 2.0", myself included, see this trend as the natural evolution of the net, and not anything truly revolutionary. Unlike mass media, the web allows consumers to easily become producers - where making your own television show requires a production company, publishing a website is cheap and easy. The net was and is bound to be dominated by the applications that make communication easiest and the companies that provide those services, provided it remains open and free.
Yet the 2.0 fanboys keep pumping the hype. Everything including re-using old 1.0 domain names is being tried to wrench money away from eager venture capitalists for 2.0 startups, and it's yet to be seen how big the 2.0 wave can get. Hopefully it'll amount to nothing more than a healthy recovery from the dot-com bubble burst, which was loaded with nearly as much unfounded pessimism as the bubble itself was with optimism. If nothing else, the current web 2.0 hype should provide those of us working (or about to work) in the industry with a second chance at developing and marketing the internet responsibly.
And speaking of 2.0, I might be experiencing Oblivion 2.0, as I played for an hour and a half last night without a single crash. After going through 4 xboxes and blaming Microsoft to no end, it appears that maybe I was simply the victim of not 1 but 2 bad game CDs. If I can make it through another 10, I'll believe that the frustration is finally over, and the battle for Cyrodrill can finally begin.
posted by RJ @ 8:15 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Put me in the skeptics camp, I guess. I mean, I love articles that start out with "No one can agree what it means" as much as the next guy, but the twin facts that (A) small startups connecting people for free are so hot right now and (B) people can make movies at home and get them seen by lots of people (like Red vs. Blue--those are freaking hilarious) doesn't seem to me to add up to a revolution, unless I'm missing something. I want Iran and North Korea brought down. When Google and MySpace and bloggers have the power to do that without firing a shot, let me know--in the meantime, I'm going to be reading LOTR. The paperback version.
Wait, so it wasn't Microsoft that was having the problems with Oblivion? So it is a matter of getting a correct game disc? When I get an Xbox 360 you'll have to let me know how to pick a good one. Oh, but I have to find free time first.
I haven't bought any other games for the 360, but I've played a few. Most of the launch titles are profoundly underwhelming, with the exception perhaps for Call of Duty, which is pretty good as far as WWII FPS games go. Full Auto is fun, but how could extremely fast racing cars with submachine guns, bombs, and extra points for blowing stuff up not be? Tomb Raider Legend was absolutely beautiful and really great fun, but it was also insanely short. I'm hopefully going to check out Fifa World Cup this weekend, but otherwise Oblivion is the best I've played. Ghost Recon 2 or whatever is getting good reviews also, and I've wanted to try hitman, but anyway, there you go. I too am very excited about the Wii.
In an email, Charles said the following:
"I don't want to make movies with my cell phone, I don't want or need everything in my house connected to everything else, and I don't see how Web 2.0 is fundamentally different from Web 1.0. In fact, I think they might have it exactly backwards--Web 1.0 was about people, weird geeks on usenets and Duke Nukem I. Web 2.0 is about big companies tracking our every move and making lots of money off us, all while giving us enough free stuff so we don't notice. While I agree that the web is democratic, it seems we're moving TOWARDS commerce, not away from it. Thoughts?"
These are really good points, but I think the difference between 1 and 2 referenced here (commerce vs. people) is more industry focus than how the net is used. In the 1.0 net frenzy, industry was focused on making everything.com, which would sell stuff. People went to grocery.com to buy groceries, pets.com to buy pets, etc. etc. The industry now is focused on providing net-accessible services for some sort of cost. The most successful direction is advertising and trending, pioneered mostly by Google and doubleClick, but charging for services still happens in some places as well.
And I love it, because I DO want everything connected to everything else. I want the power to turn it off, but I'd love it if my iPod became a cell phone that could take movies and process email and integrated for video chat into my xbox 360. I want monitors in every room - aesthetic monitors that can look like paintings and things - and, foremost, the ability to easily ignore it or turn it off.
Corporations have figured out how to use the internet better, but it's not even close to becoming the corporate dominated media outlet that TV and movies are -- the little guy still has a lot of clout here. Homestarrunner, youTube, ninjai, and askaninja.com are great examples of sites invented by individuals and maintained at almost no cost that are wildly successful. And it's not just entertainment - a few freelancers made an AJAX version of microsoft word last year, put it on the web, and google bought them up for a hefty sum a few months ago. The corporations are here, but it's not their playground yet, and they're still not making the rules.
If you want to frame the issue as services vs. product instead of commerve vs. people, then yeah, I agree with that. The whole industry is moving towards that. Look at salesforce.com, or even just companies like Google and Microsoft hosting our mail.
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