This week a recurring theme was the phrase "Web 2.0." It is a term that seems to be bandied about a lot, usually with some uncertainty. So, I decided to plunge into one of the archetypical Web 2.0 applications and take The Packet along on the ride.
First, let me note that the phrase Web 2.0 was coined by Tim O'Reilly, whose company O'Reilly Media publishes well-known books about programming and web applications - they're the white covered books with the etched animals on the cover. The company also produces events like Linuxworld, the Open Source Convention, and of course Web 2.0 Expo.
The core of the term was the idea that the new wave of web companies are inherently different from the ones in the first wave and they share several common features. Key among these is that the web itself is the platform for running applications. This is a bigger shift than it seems - it elevates the web to being not an application, but something akin to an operating system that runs lots of different applications.
It adds to that the ideas that people who use the applications shape, drive, and ultimately improve them, and that user contributions are a key element of the application, in the form of content and in extended functionality.
In short - in Web 2.0, we are in a world of web created and delivered applications that is formed by its users - and in this new world, the audience and the creator meld and blur.
The most spotlighted category of Web 2.0 applications are the social networking sites, the places that are enabling tools for people to create the content that everyone uses. Facebook is one of the best known of these. It calls itself a "social utility" which is another interesting turn of phrase, one that suggests an application whose role is to be a carrier for its users content.
The company was in the news this week because its 23-year old founder, Mark Zuckerberg, is being sued by three of his former classmates. The basic storyline is that when he was a student at Harvard, he created a sort of photo album where he posted student ID photos in pairs of two and asked people to vote on which of the two was more attractive. The university shut down the site, but three other students hired Zuckerberg to work on a social networking site they were developing. Who did what to whom culminates this week in a suit in which Zuckerberg is facing claims he stole ideas and deliberately undermined their work.
What is at stake is potentially billions of dollars, because the other attribute of Web 2.0 is that it is the hot, hot category for IPO and acquisitions. Allegedly, Facebook has already turned down a $1 Billion offer from Yahoo.
Like they say ... just follow the dollars.
So, I decided to follow Facebook, signing myself up and creating a page. What I realized is that Web 2.0 is also a cultural mindset, and one that I'm perhaps not completely ready for.
It's easy to do. You start out by registering. This includes providing your full name and your full birth date. My warning antenna went up; I'm from a world where I don't particularly like handing out personal information at all and if I do, I want to know exactly how it will be used. It won't let me put in only year or only month for my birthday. A single letter is not suitable for the last name. I consider lying, but then decided that always backfires.
I have to take a leap of faith. I do not feel warm and fuzzy about it.
In short order, a confirmation email arrives and I click on the link to the page that will let me enter the wonderful world of Web 2.0. The first thing it wants me to do is let it search my email addresses to see if any of my contacts already have pages. I decide against this. Too creepy.
Next, I join a regional network. Despite the mantra that geography doesn't matter, most social networking applications are still geographically focused - from Move On, the cause action site to, apparently, Facebook, letting others know where you are in the real world is desirable. I signed up for Cape Cod. There are 10,162 people also in the Cape Cod network. Hmm, that's about 4% of our 250,000 population pool.
As a social utility, let's see how this glues us together, shall we? OK, a featured event is a post from someone named Patrick who invites us to his home to celebrate his twenty-second birthday with him. You can meet his new husband Danny, he promises. Sorry Patrick, sorry Danny. I'll pass.
Popular items feature a lot of links to YouTube videos. Most of them, well, let's just say that I think there are trained video professionals for a reason.
I shouldn't be feeling cynical, but I am. Am I too much of a dinosaur to be a Web 2.0 thinker? I feel the same way I feel when I go to a party where I don't know anyone and am not sure that I actually want to. I also feel terribly exposed, and I haven't even posted a photo yet.
Another feature of Web 2.0 applications is the ability of users to add functionality. For example, I'm offered something called Trackzor, which is an application written by a student named David Gentzel at Virginia Tech. This application can let me see who has looked at my information.
Yup, I'll give it a try.
I can learn about the developer of the application just by clicking on his name. He has hundreds of people listed as friends. I can see their photos and with a click I can look at their pages. If I want to contact any of them, I can "poke" them. That's the Facebook term for saying hi. Sort of.
It is time to get over my photo aversion, and so I put up a photo. It's easy, just a quick click. I figure my bio photo is pretty widely circulated already, so what harm could it be. Besides, what worse could happen than attracting another cross-dressing stalker? Honest, this happened a few years ago, when the stalker in question found my photo in an article that appeared in American Airlines magazine and for the next several months I received graphic images of him (her?) via email. I mean that was pretty weird and it didn't involve any Web 2.0 technology at all. That was print. OK, I've justified posting my photo.
And no human application of any sort would be complete without a marketplace. No exception here - auctions, advertising, the usual mix are all available.
There's clearly money to be made and when you strip it all down I think that Web 2.0's closest analogy is a very old one. It's the digital utilities that create a virtual bazaar, where you meet and greet and buy and sell and pick your next lunch date. If you think about humans, Web 2.0 seems almost inevitable.
I don't think I have what it takes to be a very good Facebook resident - but who knows? Maybe even this dinosaur can learn the new 2.0 ways.
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