In this essay, O'Reilly presents a comprehensive analysis of Web 2.0. I feel that, on the whole, he is accurate in his assessment of what distinguishes Web 2.0 and Web 1.0, especially considering that he wrote the essay in 2005. Some of what he writes is downright prophetic: in the section entitled "Software above the level of a single device," he says that "This is one of the areas of Web 2.0 where we expect to see some of the greatest change, as more and more devices are connected to the new platform. What applications become possible when our phones and our cars are not consuming data but reporting it? Real time traffic monitoring, flash mobs, and citizen journalism are only a few of the early warning signs of the capabilities of the new platform." Other things he predicts, however, make him seem overly optimistic: "Much as the rise of proprietary software led to the Free Software movement, we expect the rise of proprietary databases to result in a Free Data movement within the next decade. One can see early signs of this countervailing trend in open data projects such as Wikipedia, the Creative Commons, and in software projects like Greasemonkey, which allow users to take control of how data is displayed on their computer." While this is true in some ways, I'm not sure the Free Data movement has taken off as much as O'Reilly thought it would.
In case you're curious about O'Reilly's overall picture of Web 2.0, here's a summary, as presented at the end of his essay:
"In exploring the seven principles above, we've highlighted some of the principal features of Web 2.0. Each of the examples we've explored demonstrates one or more of those key principles, but may miss others. Let's close, therefore, by summarizing what we believe to be the core competencies of Web 2.0 companies:
-- Services, not packaged software, with cost-effective scalability
-- Control over unique, hard-to-recreate data sources that get richer as more people use them
-- Trusting users as co-developers
-- Harnessing collective intelligence
-- Leveraging the long tail through customer self-service
-- Software above the level of a single device
-- Lightweight user interfaces, development models, AND business models
The next time a company claims that it's 'Web 2.0,' test their features against the list above. The more points they score, the more they are worthy of the name. Remember, though, that excellence in one area may be more telling than some small steps in all seven."
In his blog Serenpity35, Ken Ronkowitz expands on O'Reilly's definition of Web 2.0 to include such factors as the need for new security functions and economic models, as well as the issue of sharing and stealing content. While I don't view this characterization of Web 2.0 as incorrect, I don't think that these aspects of Web 2.0 are as prominent as Ronkowitz may have thought when writing his 2006 post. He was totally on-point, however, when talking about the increased potential for collaboration and interaction, which has become a hallmark of Web 2.0.
Here's my definition of Web 2.0, based on my readings and personal experience:
Web 2.0 is characterized by:
-- User-generated content (which includes content submitted and/or refined by users, as in Wikipedia; pages tagged by users, as on delicious; and page settings that are customized, directly or indirectly, by users, as in iGoogle)
-- Data presented in a variety of ways (which may involve a "cloud" of data; or using the same data on multiple platforms, like PCs and mobile phones)
-- The creation of networks and subnetworks (whether they are determined directly by the user, as in Facebook, or indirectly, as illustrated by social bookmarking sites' users' ability to share and discuss sites with people of similar interests)
-- Ever-evolving services (which may include behind-the-scenes tweaks or revisions to site layout and functionalities)
Web 2.0 is touted as being the "user-run Web," but I believe that the power users have over their Web experience is mostly an illusion. Ultimately, our experiences and the extent of our contributions are greatly influenced by the companies running sites with Web 2.0 capabilities. One example of this is this year's debate over the ownership of Facebook content. When does our content stop being "ours" and start being "the company's"? Also, a site can only have so much functionality. Site features may be added or taken away at any time. The best and most successful Web 2.0 sites are the ones that best maintain the illusion of user power and make their influence over user experience as transparent as possible.
Do I think we're past Web 2.0? No, but I do believe that we're on the cusp between Web 2.0 and Web 3.0, whatever that may be. Web users now take the functionalities inherent in Web 2.0 for granted, and the technology behind it has become mainstream. Such mainstreaming is necessary before any distinctive features that are beyond the scope of Web 2.0 can be introduced to the public in any meaningful way. Now that "everyone" has accounts on sites like Facebook and LinkedIn and that people have become "addicted" to Twitter and iPhone apps, the groundwork has been established for more evolved uses of data and ways of networking.
There has been much speculation about what Web 3.0 will look like and how it will be different from Web 2.0. The main buzzword for Web 3.0 seems to be "semantic," implying that computers will be able to more intelligently determine meaning. As Cade Metz at PC Magazine wrote in an article on the subject, "In essence, the Semantic Web is a place where machines can read Web pages much as we humans read them, a place where search engines and software agents can better troll the Net and find what we're looking for. 'It's a set of standards that turns the Web into one big database,' says Nova Spivack, CEO of Radar Networks, one of the leading voices of this new-age Internet." In addition to the vision of the "Semantic Web," other presented possibilities for Web 3.0 include "3D Web," "Media-Centric Web" (as opposed to a mostly text-driven Web), and "Pervasive Web". Like Web. 2.0, there are conferences centered around the idea of Web 3.0. The homepage for one such conference states, "The core idea behind web 3.0 is to extract much more meaningful, actionable insight from information...The goal of Web 3.0 is to reorganize information so users can capture what things are and how they are related. This seemingly simple concept will have a profound effect at every level of information consumption, from the individual end user to the enterprise. Web 3.0 technologies make the organization of information radically more fluid and allow for new types of analysis based on things like text semantics, machine learning, and what we call serendipity — the stumbling upon insights based on just having better organized and connected information."
Until such Web 3.0 functionality materializes, we'll have to rely on human users to categorize information, a practice often referred to as "folksonomy." I find folksonomy to be a particularly compelling aspect of Web 2.0 from a usability standpoint, since the very point of it is to make the Web easier to navigate and to give users the ability to quickly find information of interest to them. It does have its imperfections, since the leeway it gives users leaves room for misspellings and debatable tags (for a more full treatment of this topic see Elaine Peterson's essay "Beneath the Metadata: Some Philosophical Problems with Folksonomy"). Nonetheless, it does provide a useful look at how "the masses" characterize and interpret content, and it can also give us insight into the psychological underpinnings of how people choose to describe what they see and read.
Folksonomy has become a dominant feature of Web 2.0 and can be most readily seen on social bookmarking sites and other sites that rely on user-determined tags. One such site that has received relatively little publicity is Mixx. As described in a press release, "'By providing tools that let users build their own interest-based start pages and supporting free-form tag entries, Mixx makes it easy for users to find and vote on the articles, videos and photos they like and against the ones they don’t like within specific categories and locations. The result is that Mixx is useful to everyone—not just the techie crowd that dominates traditional, one-dimensional recommendation tools,' says Chris McGill, CEO and founder at Mixx. Mixx allows users interested in all types of digital media to discover, share and engage in conversations about the content they find most interesting by submitting and discussing relevant items." When users submit links, they tag them according to the content they present. Each user's homepage is customized with links having tags matching that user's list of interests.
Here's a look at mine:
(I hope no one's surprised by this partial list of my interests!)
And here's what the Front Page looks like, featuring Popular Stories and tags for "Hot Topics":
("Total Tweets Tweeted Nearing 5 Billion"? Dang.)
Do you have any favorite Web 2.0 sites? How do you feel about Web 3.0? Maintain the Web 2.0 tradition and share.
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