Web 2.0

The name of the Rose (Web 2.0)
Joe Aliferis is a Director of Newforms.co.uk Ltd. A web technology development consultancy based in Brighton.

The Perl programmer that sits next to me keeps telling me that 'Web 2.0' doesn't exist and it’s a constant source of aggravation for him that people keep chucking the term around as if it actually means something, when clearly it doesn't. I nod in agreement, despite the fact that I believe it must mean something - although, it's true that the Web 2.0 meme has become so widespread that companies are now pasting it on their websites as a marketing buzzword, with no real understanding of what it means.


So what does it mean?
Not too long ago, a 'Consortium' of like-minded 'consultants' organised a 'brain storming' session which they called the 'web 2' conference'. Here they collaborated to draw up the blueprints of what they saw as 'web 2.0'. What they were trying to do was to define the birth of a new 'better' Internet, with themselves at the forefront of it.

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

However, probably because their definition was somewhat vague, the meaning of the term 'web 2.0' quickly went out of focus. Today, some think that it is not much more than a re-branding – whilst others think it implies a type of content that is less static, more collaborative. Designers think it implies an approach to design, whilst developers are, on the whole, baffled by the implied differences to an implied 'Web 1.0' (mainly because they know that, at a low level, there are none!)

The collaborative guru's
Wikipedia describes web 2.0 as referring to a perceived or proposed second generation of Internet-based services - such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies - that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users (yawn).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2


The birth of a new Internet
This school of web 2.0 evangelists have a vested interest in re-branding the Internet. In short, they wish to distance themselves from the stigma of slow internet connections, badly designed websites, static content and floundering dot-com's. They are the consultant-guru's who have not only survived the 'great crash' of 2001, but have emerged as new, shinier, sexier versions of themselves. At least, so they want us to believe.

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html


The re-branding acolytes
Tim Berners-Lee, the father of the Internet, says 'I think Web 2.0 is…a piece of jargon, nobody even knows what it means'

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060901-7650.html


Implied improvements – implied sophistication
At its best, jargon can be used as a method of connecting people with ideas, but often it simply obfuscates these ideas. At worst, it can be used to create the illusion that a concept or a technique is fully understood. That one is an 'expert' – or to make something sound more sophisticated than it actually is. If I write a sentence like this:

'The product is designed to leverage contemporary Web 2.0 technologies, creating powerful collaborative tools that will allow users to interact with each other in a real-time virtual space.'

Would you believe that this could be a description of a forum or bulletin board..?

Designers & standards
Putting aside those that are design-centric to the point of thinking that 'Web 2.0' refers to a design style, the problem of definition is further confused by the fact that some take it to mean a standard, like HTML 4.1 or XML 1.0 This it most definitely is not. At most, it is a catchall term that refers to a set of principles – but what those principles are is anybody's guess! In so much as the term 'Web 2.0' is thought to refer to a platform, technology or standard, that is simply not true.

Front facing views
My view is that, whilst it obviously means different things to different groups of people, 'web 2.0' is perhaps a term designed for consumers to digest, rather than developers – and that, at best, it is' is a banner used to denote a more sophisticated type of web application than the traditional 'website'...perhaps for those that only see the front-end. But, in the end, a Rose is still a Rose, by any other name…surely!

Joe Aliferis is a Director of Newforms.co.uk Ltd. A web technology development consultancy based in Brighton.