To Web 2.0 or not to …

Why oh why did I ever start to read about web 2.0

Before I go on, I’d like to make it clear : I’m **NOT** an internet guru, specialist and far less pretend to **know**.

So why ? Basically over the last weeks Jens and me have been trying to get the show back up. This included some rework of many parts, SEO (search engine optimalisation) and while looking for solutions, answers I often stumbled on web 2.0. Since I’m curious by nature, I clicked the link and started to read, and quickly figured out that I’d never get anywhere in web 2.0 world without some extra deep reading.

So that’s what I’ve been doing for a week now. And honestly, I didn’t progress much in this matter. I traced it’s origin to a conference brainstorming session between O’Reilly and MediaLive International. And O’reilly isn’t unknown to me (and hopefully that’s the same for you). If he’s behind it, then he must have something on his site. And indeed, he wrote a long article last year (am I slow ) about what web 2.0 is.

So now we know who’s behind this, but what *is it* ?

And this is where it starts to become complicated and depending who you read it is THE NEW INTERNET, an overhyped marketing stunt or normal evolution of the net. I’ll just take out a few key elements from O’Reilly’s article and let you judge.

### A comparison between web 1.0 and web 2.0 :

And if you like a visual representation :

### __Core Competencies of Web 2.0 Companies__ according to O’Reilly

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.

Here’s a link if you want to read all the details about what web 2.0 is according to O’Reilly.

What do I think about it ? Pretty scary to read this because now I start to find web 3.0, web 4.0 and even numbers beyond. So am I a few centuries behind ? I didn’t think so till I started to read all this web versioning. So let’s take a deep breath and calm down.

Basically we evolved (luckely) from each a computer on his desk with programs (with or without crashes/blue screens or sad macs) doing little to nothing. Depending budget we could buy hardware and software to perform some tasks but it was the software company offering. Marketing wise “hey folks look what I can do” and who cares the user. Slowly the world turned and hardware became cheaper, more and more people got access to the power of it. People started to code their own programs since the ones on the shelve were to expensive (or just not doing what they were looking for). Slowly the user took control on the hardware and software. Very nice example is Mr. Linus Trovald starting the linux project since unix was so expensive. Open Office versus Office. In other words open source.

We slowly changed from the passive user dominated by a few big players offering tools to active users. That’s nice indeed but is that hype ? Nope, not according me
This brought to the web, means we are changing habits from just passively using a few programs that display what *’they’* wanted us to see to program allowing us to choose what *’we’* want to see in the manner we want.

And the focus is slowly going from hardware to software to information (this is to understand wide).

What is the web today ? A huge pond with information about whatever you want. I don’t think there is a subject missing on the internet. You name it, just search and you’ll find it somewhere. And for those who remember ? How long does the internet exist for the human being (not talking about the Arpanet, usenet or the Cern’s system to link universities), the one we use now, open to all without restrictions (sometimes we wonder if there shouldn’t be some to prevent abuse, but that’s another debate). It isn’t that old. It started somewhere early 90’s. That’s hardly 16 years. You don’t have that feeling it is there since *always* ? You can look up history, geography just as news, books…

Isn’t **information** what’s the internet about ? I think it is. What has changed in those 16 years is how it is coming to us, or better said, how we changed it to ‘go get it’. Today there is more on the net then we ever could read in our complete live. The first big ‘intenet’ companies were big boys, offering ‘their’ view to us. That imposed information died mostly with the big dot com burst. People didn’t take this way of imposing a view anymore. The few big ones became quickly a lot less big ones because many little ones started to offer other ways to access this information. RSS is today one of the best known results of this go get information attitude. Instead having a few big news coprs, we have now a simple tool that allows each and everyone to ‘get’ news from any source he wants. And people like Distant-Help have a simple mean to offer this to it’s readers. It is offered and not imposed. We are free to take or leave.

Do we have to talk about *web x.x* ? I think not. What we see today is just not a versioning of the net. It is still the same information, but the way we access it is changing and will be changing even more in the future. The simple fact there is so much, asks for tools to compile it, classify it … who knows what else. But somehow we need to have it presented in a list with relevancy so we have somewhere to start in this information overflow.

The tools for this will have to be simple, open, easy to use by the common human. And today the tools are not offered by a few big players, but by many, each having it’s pro’s and con’s. But it is clear that the ones used by most are often the simplest. And the one that is number one today is not necessarily going to be number one tomorrow (Yahoo, Netsccape…). The good old KISS principle is still the one to follow (keep it simple and stupid). Look at Google’s search page. Can’t make is less according me and still, look at the multitude off tools they propose these days, maps, translation tools, … but they are each time simple and open to for integration.

And if you look the internet from the other side, those who offer content or means to look for content. That has changed as radically over the years. There are so many means these days to publish content for free or democratic prices (blogs, forums, mailing lists…). Even hosting space is so cheap these days, or free… the barrier from early days is just gone. The internet is not for the powerful anymore. It is there for all.

Maybe as said someone I know well told me years ago : the internet is the only ‘real’ democratic place on earth. No one is really owner of it. The access is open to most and the barrier to access it is very low. We all can look freely what we want and we can freely offer content. And that is today the **web**.

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