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Does Web 2.0 Really Exist?

13 Responses (Add) | Saturday, September 13th, 2008 at 2:56am


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You might remember awhile ago, I took a telemarketing call from a company that claimed to provide Web 2.0 services. I strung them along, just to mess with them. On Sept 10th, I did a remote panel session from my home. The panel discussed Web 2.0 technology and its interplay with the government. Ahead of time, the facilitator sent me a list of questions to consider, which I thought would make a good video.

  • Do you consider yourself an early adopter/digital immigrant/digital native? – I’m kind of an edge case. Since the day I realized I could do live video all the time, I’ve been doing it. I consider myself an early adopter in most instances. When it comes to hardware, definitely. With software and web services, not so much. I know that I’ll get tied into one website or another, and it could just disappear. That happened a lot with the .com boom. I’m a little more careful these days about giving attention to one website over another.
  • Is web 2.0 a fad? If it is, is it necessarily bad? – I don’t think it’s a fad, I think it’s a conference. I think the idea is a little disingenuous when it comes to the Internet. We haven’t seen a massive amount of browser innovation. Google Chrome has stepped it up a couple of notches. It has nothing to do with the Internet though. It has to do with the desktop. With the digital divide closing, we’ve come to rely on different services online. I would rather call it a renaissance, than to label it with a number like 2.0.
  • When did you make the switch into the web 2.0 world? Was it a business or personal switch at first? Do you even compartmentalize the two? – No, I don’t compartmentalize the two. No one “makes a switch” into the 2.0 world, it just happens.
  • How do you find out about new web 2.0 tools? – I find them the same way I find out about anything. I find out from friends, such as via email invitations, the chat room and even from Geeks. The more people talk about something, the more aware I become of it. I would just as soon turn to my community to learn about new things. It’s funny because I talk out loud to myself all the time. With the camera running live all the time, I’ll mutter about needing to find or do something. Nearly instantly, someone is telling me they can help. That is awesome.
  • What web 2.0 tool could you not live without? What is your essential business tool? – Email, honestly. Instant messaging. Those really haven’t changed. The tools have evolved to a certain degree. But instant messaging is still so far behind. I can’t think of the last time that I ran a client that was created by an IM distributor, such as Yahoo or AIM. I use Adium, and I used Trillian before that. I still see the web and the Internet as being predicated on a closed, proprietary model. Eventually, though, all software will be open source. I really believe that.
  • It seems like a new web 2.0 comes tool or site out every week, do you try them all or do you wait for the early adopters to weed out the time-wasters? – I’ll take a look. If it seems ok on the surface, it’ll stay on my radar. I don’t stick with one tool or another unless it is of huge value to me. If enough people talk about it, I’ll end up caving in… just like with adding MySpace and Facebook. It depends on where something fits, and what I get from it. It depends on the momentum behind it, and whether it will help me in my endeavors.
  • The twitter effect … breaking news, disseminating information instantly vs. the old methods. – Twitter has been interesting. I don’t really complain about the downtime. I love complaining about the people who complain about the downtime. It’s free! Why are you complaining about something you’re getting for nothing? Anyway, I digress. I made a statement about Twitter during Gnomedex: “Twitter is a place for you to say, before thinking about what you actually think”. You see that somewhat in blogs, but Twitter exacerbates the problem. It can be a serious issue when people are feeling emotional about something.

So, those are my quick thoughts about web 2.0. What’s yours?

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13 Comments

Web Developers

September 16th, 2008
at 4:54am

Chris Pirillo Would You Like to Fight Yoda or Darth Vader? What’s Your Favorite Podcast? How Do You Clean Your LCD Screens?Does Web 2.0 Really Exist?What’s Your Favorite Video App for the iPhone?

DevLano

September 13th, 2008
at 3:49am

Web 2.0 has to do with the actual construction of the sites them selves.

Web 1.0 was way back when. Where static pages just linked to each other, and there was no dynamic code generation or data retrieval taking place.

Web 2.0 is when application based languages were created. ASP/PHP/Coldfusion and others. Using dynamic page includes and utilizing database systems to store and sort the sites content. THAT’S web 2.0.

Web 3.0 is the mobile landscape.(or so I’ve been told) which will become web 2.0 again cause phone browsers will just end up being current browsers. and things like flash lite won’t be a big deal. That’s my guess any ways.

Kyle Teachman

September 13th, 2008
at 9:35am

Great post with some great answers. Totally agree with you that its more a renaissance then a full 2.0. Once the internet gets an App store, THEN we can call it 2.0 =]

Rick

September 13th, 2008
at 11:33am

The existence of the label “Web 2.0″ irritates me to no end. If “Web 2.0″ actually existed, then “Car 2.0″ would exist. In my view, what is being addressed as “Web 2.0″ is the equivalent of the automotive phenomenon of power windows and remote keyless entry systems becoming common in new cars, or the addition of airbags, seatbelts and safety glass to cars. It has nothing to do with there being a completely “new car”, it’s simply a change in the interface with the car that adds functionality. The basic underpinnings of what a car is and what a car does are all still the same.

All that the label “Web 2.0″ addresses are evolutionary changes to capabilities and services that already existed, not revolutionary ones. Facebook, for instance, is merely a combination of an IM service with a search engine and photo gallery. Twitter is just a more invasive form of IM. Web cams have existed for a long time, so the 24/7 teleconference is just an extension that came from the adoption of higher-speed Internet connectivity, which doesn’t make the waste of bandwidth as prohibitive as it once was when streamed video ate up the capacity of the entire pipe. None of this is revolutionary, worthy of identification as a “second Internet”, as the label “Web 2.0″ would indicate. It’s merely a marketing ploy.

woolf2k

September 13th, 2008
at 8:51pm

I hope so…. I mean… there is a Web 3.0 now so there must be a 2.0…

aye… marketing where would we ever do with out it?

Ryne Nelson

September 13th, 2008
at 9:05pm

Chris, I loved watching this clip. The fact you’re no. 1 over pop star Chris Brown is so baller!

zach hubbs

September 14th, 2008
at 2:45pm

I love all ur vids, i like this one alot too.

PJ

September 14th, 2008
at 8:27pm

I believe Web 2.0 exists, it is just a name for the ugraded platform that is the web. And thus Web 2.0 does exist

m7king

September 14th, 2008
at 8:31pm

I’m not too sure if web 2.0 exists…that subject is a little cloudy for my standards. Web 2.0 seems pretty cool though :)

Rob

September 15th, 2008
at 5:05am

You are so on point about Web 2.0. There’s no such thing IMO. As far as I can tell, what people call Web 2.0 is just innovative ways of using things that have been around for years.

We’ve seen some great developments over the last several years; AJAX, the advances in Open Source, continued penetration of tools like PHP and MySQL combined with easier access to affordable hosting, and tools like Joomla and WordPress which greatly expand the ability of individuals and organizations to get their message out.

All of these are great, but the phrase “Web 2.0″ misleads the public and the non-tech-savvy media by implying there was a sudden shift from old to new, which of course never happened. It has been a gradual evolution which is still happening.

Zavrion

September 15th, 2008
at 1:20pm

Web 2.0 is just a term that identifies a generation of the internet in its current state. The term was coined in 2004, which really was the year that the internet became more then just information.

In my opinion I believe that an internet generation lasts as long as the market it represents is not saturated. In the case of Web 2.0 we are getting to the point where every social niche has a network. I think the term will become less relevant in the next year or two.

Web 2.0 is more of a Renaissance than anything. That being said, I don’t think any other generation of the internet in the near future will be as important as this one.

@DevLano
You are probably right about Web 3.0. However, I think it will be a year or two before that becomes critically important. We are getting their, but we aren’t quite there yet. Some people consider the UMPC one of Microsofts greatest failures. When really it was just way a head of its time.

Personally, I think in 2010 or 2011 will be laughing at the fact that Engadget had the UMPC as one of Microsofts 10 greatest failures. After all, a smart phone is just an underpowered UMPC. The more you add PC features to a phone the closer it becomes to a UMPC.

What Do You Think?