When Web 2.0 Becomes "Just the Web"
For the last couple of months, media new and old have been reporting of the rise of another dot com bubble. Web 2.0 has been the reasoning behind the new bubble argument – look at BusinessWeek’s cover story on Digg and their founder, or the attraction to Linden Labs’ Second Life. But as I grabbed my TiVo remote and hunkered down to watch my favorite sports talk show, PTI, I was startled to hear a sports story concerning Wikipedia, a poster child for everything Web 2.0. Apparently Fuzzy Zoeller, a pro golfer and inflammatory figure (remember his comments about Tiger and the Master’s Champions dinner) is not too amused that his Wikipedia entry contains things like that he abused his family, drugs, and alcohol and now wants to sue the individuals he thinks are responsible for posting those things to his biography.
The argument here isn’t what is right or wrong with Wikipedia, but rather when does Web 2.0 become just the Web? Is it when we have mass adoption and it becomes a story on your favorite sports talk show? I think the term Web 2.0 is an industry term that allows companies to feel like they are contributing new technologies, cutting edge social networking features etc etc…but if you ask the everyday user, would they know what Web 2.0 is? I could poll all of my friends - college educated, gainfully employed individuals - and I would wager that less than five would know the term Web 2.0. They would just tell me that YouTube, MySpace, Wikipedia are all just part of the Web…and I think that’s when you know that your new technologies have made it, when they become just part of the web. How would you define Web 2.0?
Comments
Web 2.0 becomes "the Web" when marketers and other vendors start creating "Web 3.0" technologies.
I had an interesting discussion with a bunch of people who suggest that Web 3.0 will be technologies that create 3-D virtual environments of Web sites, integrating map data (the dreaded "mash up" terminology) with other data. The stuff that Microsoft is doing with creating a virtual "real world", as well as the Second Life stuff, could be considered the early stages of Web 3.0.
Posted by: Keith Shaw | February 26, 2007 10:49 AM
I have read on blogs etc some of the same things on new 3-D technologies. But how do you see 3-D becoming useful everyday applications...I can see it in map mashups but where else?
Posted by: Chris | February 26, 2007 12:48 PM