Web 2.0 is it Really That Great?

Back in 2004 Tim O'Reilly hosted a conference billed as the O'Reilly Media Web 2.0. It sounded cool and hip. The premise was that Tim saw the web changing with new technologies and standards being developed. He envisioned that these changes would radically alter the way that software developers and end users of the web would interact and use the web.

Interestingly enough, Tim Berners-Lee, who is credited with writing the first web browser and creating the 'web', called web 2.0 a "piece of jargon". Basically a bunch of marketing hype and spin. Tim had since the beginning of the web envisioned that these technologies would be part of the web.

What is web 2.0?

A web 2.0 web site is a site that allows visitors to view the contents of the site. Not only that but be able to interact with the web page, like add to the contents of the page. Think of blogs where you can leave a comment, which in effect adds to the content of the page.

There should be a high level of interoperability. The website relies on published standards for information exchange, like RSS for publication.

Over all the site should have a good user centered design. Well, heck if the site has a really bad layout where you can't find what you are looking for, what are you going to do? Search for another site that has what you are looking for.

Is the Web a platform?

Can you build products and services upon the web / internet? Is the web a real platform upon which software developers can build products for end consumers? Compare Microsoft's internet explorer which is a piece of software. Chances are you are currently viewing this page using it. It follows the traditional software cycle. Feature requests are complied, high level & low level designs are written. Finally the code is written, tested and eventually shipped.

Compare this to say a search engine like Google. Google does not ship a software product, but rather it provides a service of web search. Users come to Google's website, enter a set of keywords and hope that google returns relevant pages. The difference is, that internally they are updating the search engine's algorithms that determine which page best matches your keyword selection. There is no lock step software release cycle.

The critics claim and rightfully so, that "web 2.0" is really nothing different than "web 1.0" concepts and technologies [http://blinklist.com/Abigale47522].