When talking about the modern internet -- which I seem to be doing a lot these days -- I use the phrase “web 2.0” to describe a broadly related assortment of new interactive services, software and businesses. Which means people are always asking me, “What the hell is Web 2.0?”.
The soundbite-stupid answer is: it’s version two of the world wide web, the product of new tools which are finally exploiting the deeper potential that comes when we interconnect (damn near) every electronic device on the planet -- and, thereby, the hundreds of millions of people with access to those devices -- in one vast network.
So, what does that look like, what does it mean in real life, right now? As is always the case in the midst of a revolution, that means many different things to different people.
I’ve been bookmarking things web 2.0, in my travels over the net. Some recent ones are listed to the right. You can see many more of them on this page, or all of them on del.icio.us. In fact, both of these linked pages are themselves good examples of web 2.0 services in action. Because these two separate and dynamically generated pages, each created using different software running on completely different servers, are actually sharing content. Look at each page, and you’ll see the core content (the links and descriptions) are actually the same. The list on my web site is in alphabetical order and is limited to a certain number of my most recent bookmarks, while the uglier list on del.icio.us is the complete list of bookmarks i’ve tagged as “web2.0”, being the master list from which the other draws it’s bookmarks.
One defining quality of web 2.0 is how it’s more fully interactive, the communication goes both directions, and on more than one level. Like the comments in this blog that allow you to chime in with your own input or questions on this topic. By speaking in a common language (in this case written English, the one you and I clearly have in common) we’re able to share information via the service of this blog. (Click the “add a comment” link below and try it.) But it’s also the way this blog and my del.icio.us account are able to exchange information via the languages they have in common (such as HTML, Javascript and RSS, to name a few).
The distinction between the “publisher” and the “user” is disappearing, as we all become increasingly equal participants in a conversation, be it via comments, our own blogs, discussion forums, live call-in netcasts, or other social services and online communities. And the distinction between each web 2.0 service is blurring, as savvy developers open their APIs and provide RSS feeds for all their dynamic content, thus allowing their tools to co-mingle with each other, and encouraging other developers to create mash-ups that combine several tools into yet another service.
Here are a few social web 2.0 services, which I can (and have) easily set up to automatically exchange content with each other:
I could ramble on. But if you really want to learn about how the internet and connected technologies are forever changing the way humans communicate, the best thing to do is
look over an assortment of web 2.0 sites, yourself, see what they have in common, and -- best of all -- try using a few that look interesting to you!
Maybe our bits and bytes will bump into each other out there. “Have your content call my content. Text me, and we’ll do lunch. Ciao.”
1 March 2007
