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May 09, 2007
What is Web 2.0? And Why Web 2.0?
People ask me what is Web 2.0. There are a lot of definitions and discussions available (and you can see some of them in the resource list, but here is the Wikipedia article, just for a start.).
The main point I want to make is that what is being commonly called Web 2.0 is, on the one hand, not doing anything new at all. On the other hand, it uses some pretty nifty technological tools and developments to make it possible to do some really useful work in a way that we only hoped to do before.
My perspective is that what Web 2.0 is doing is to embed information and resources in a social context, and that as a result information can take on the changeable and evolving nature of social relationships.
Initially, when the phrase "Web 2.0" first came out, I revolted against it. You see, I remember the beginning of the web, and my grad school mentor, Manfred Kochen, was one of the people who predicted its coming and fought for it throughout much of his career. The whole concept of "Web 2.0" seemed to me to simply be saying that we are now closer to reaching the original goals of creating the web in the first place! I didn't get why we suddenly started saying that, oh, this was different or cooler, when actually we are still bootstrapping ourselves along to goal #1 -- empowering the little.
Now, as someone who is embedded in a Web 2.0 environment, teaching Web 2.0 tools, techniques, methodologies and resources, I have grudgingly and later wonderingly come to realize this is indeed a Sea Change. I now find that normal databases (like Pubmed) and normal search engines (like Google / Yahoo) seem flat to me. They're missing something, something that has become intertwined with my current mental models of search.
I use PubMed, and get as cranky as if I was given a lemon meringue pie with just meringue and no lemon. It is fluffy and flavorless, with no zing -- where is the context? Where is the sense of who is reading what, who prefers what? We get back a bunch of results, but have no idea which are the really good ones, the eccentric clever ones, the oddball sloppy ones, the underappreciated brilliant pieces.
When I was a young thing (and I am dating myself here!), the public library in my town had cards in the back of the books listing who had checked them out recently. Then they graduated to address stickers. In both cases, I found myself picking up a book that interested me and immediately turning to the back to see who else had been reading it. I had figured out that the most interesting and enjoyable books had usually been read by a couple other people whose names I learned to recognize. I didn't necessarily know who these folk were, and most of them I never met, but I sure knew I appreciated their taste in good books!
Now, with Del.icio.us, I find myself at last able to do the same thing. I watch ratcatcher, without knowing who he is, send him links, and he sometimes funnels links to me, too. I watch choconancy, vielmetti, jensjeppe, hardinmd, virginiastevens, jokay, and cbonner (in no particular order). I've met two of them. I find my Web 2.0 communities overlapping, and have met Flickr friends in Second Life. I watch jokay (as one example) in del.icio.us, slideshare, flickr, blogs/wikis, and Second Life.
[The section above quotes myself speaking elsewhere on this topic.]
Here is a video from YouTube that gives a clever visual to what is Web 2.0.
Posted by pfa at May 9, 2007 08:27 AM