The real Web 2.0

[cheeni]

I swear, I'll wring the neck of the next person who mentions the words "Web 2.0" anywhere near me.


Wikipedia defines it thusly,

Web 2.0 is a term often applied to a perceived ongoing 
transition of the World Wide Web from a collection of 
websites to a full-fledged computing platform serving 
web applications to end users. Ultimately Web 2.0 
services are expected to replace desktop computing 
applications for many purposes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0

Yes, this is all true, but only an idiot wouldn't have seen it coming umm... about 8 or 9 years ago! Wasn't that what Hotmail was all about?

So, what then makes Web 2.0 so special? My personal, not-so-tin-foil-hat theory is that it's merely a marketroid buzzword designed to inject enthusiasm into the sagging (as of two years ago) internet industry. More recently, the internet business has found its footing again, and we are seeing a rash of new ideas, mostly aimed at beating or joining Google. Let's celebrate it, yes, let's call it Web 2.0!

But, really, it also leaves a lot unsaid about the real Web 2.0, here's why:

1. The world gets orders of magnitude more spam today than it ever did in 1997. Yeah, that's web 2.0 too.
   
2. We didn't have non-existant DNS entries hijacked by domain registrars back in the day,
   
3. why, what we really have is DRM 2.0. Take that Napster...
   
4. I've nearly bid adieu to Usenet, and IRC. It's really the network effect kicking in, there are a few old timers hanging around, but really, there isn't enough action happening to justify a faithful presence.
   
5. What we have are ISPs wanting to charge toll on traffic passing through their networks. We knew this was coming, we thought it'd be Microsoft, and so we battled their attempted hijack of TCP/IP, but we lost sight of the grand telco mergers. *sigh*
   
6. Where have our civil liberties gone? The Web 2.0 way is to use Carnivore 2.0
   
7. The web 2.0 will be so much fun with multiple root servers. It'll be great to be back in our walled gardens...
   
8. The web 2.0 is about blocked ports and office firewalls...of course it's also about ubiquitous internet access, and drive by hackers and worms.
   

I was hoping to list an even 10 points, but I've already overstretched my time. So there you go...love it, pan it, whatever you will, I think the mushy love for Web 2.0 stinks of naive sheeple being preyed upon by marketroids.

Comments

[thaths.livejournal.com]

First off, the typical lay user of the term 'Web 2.0' will probably for all purposes bunch the WWW with email and the rest of the Internet.

I thought the term 'Web 2.0' was targetted at the VCs and geeks and not at the users. As far as the user is concerned, many cannot diffrentiate between the chrome (of a browser) and the content (rendered inside the browser).

...you may be denied or restricted access to otherwise public information.

Thank god for the Free / Open Culture people. I would hardly call the data Amazon or Google or MS or any huge corporation spits out as public. That is why I believe open content of all kinds have to be created by geeks.

As for the Beeb, that is a special case. It is public domain for the users that subsidize it - i.e. UK tax payers. Making it public domain for the entire world takes away precious licensing rights and revenue that comes from sales of DVDs and videos.