Is Web 2.0 Really What You Mean?
Having written about web 2.0 before I will try to expand a little bit on that with this blogpost. It’s quite hard to find a definition of what Web 2.0 really is, or rather it’s hard to find one that people agree with. The best one I have come across is not really a definition, but it explains the transition between, what presumably was, Web 1.0 to Web 2.0.
“While initially content was mostly read from the Web, content is meanwhile more and more written to the Web. This is why some people speak of Web 2.0 as the “read/write Web.” Vossen, G. and S. Hagemann (2007). Unleashing Web 2.0 : from concepts to creativity.
Google Always Gets it Right
I personally share the view of Eric Schmidt the CEO of Google. He believes Web 2.0 being a set of applications for the web. I agree with him on the basis that things like blogs and wikis and even using the web as a platform, as Tim O’Reilly first defined Web 2.0, has been around since the beginning of the web. Only difference being that the technology simply wasn’t there to allow a great deal of interactivity. See Amazon, they have had reviews for years, because they mastered the technology.
I will use this time line created by Jürgen Schiller Garica to demonstrate my point. Weblogs, wikis and communities all dates back to the beginning of the World Wide Web, where it is the more technical things that dominates later on: Social software, AJAX and podcasts.
User-generated content
User-generated content becomes a natural addition to this technology, because you can now with the new applications create an environment for users to use; Myspace, Facebook, Flickr. These are all seen as classic examples of Web 2.0. In contrast to this I don’t see social networking as Web 2.0, I don’t see online communities as Web 2.0, that’s just people using the Web 2.0 environment to satisfy their needs, because now they can. I see a clear distinction where web 2.0 is merely technology based, and social networking and communities as cultural needs people have. Remember it’s not only online we use user-generated content, it is also used on television.
This transition from passive to active use of the web is not an unexpected development. If you look at television as an example, the first television programs were all about sitting and being talked to. Educational TV. That of course soon changed, so that viewers could interact via phone calls and later via texts.
The Semantic Web
In this context I also think that there is a difference between, what people refer to as the Semantic web, and here I will disagree with Adam and claim that RSS is not a Web 2.0 technology but rather a part of the Semantic web. The semantic web dates back to the start of the WWW. Sir Tim Berners-Lee the creator of the WWW expressed thoughts about this when he created the World Wide Web back in 1993.
The semantic web is not based on applications like Web 2.0 is, but rather on the process of communication. This idea where web content can be read and understood not only by humans but also by computers. RSS feeds are an example of this, and as Hammersley, (2003) describes it:
“[RSS] is the basis for the concept known as the Semantic Web, the W3C’s vision of a web of information that computers can understand.”Hammersley, B. (2003). Content syndication with RSS. Beijing Farnham, O’Reilly.
The semantic web is many times what people mean, when they refer to Web 2.0, although there are many takes on this matter.
Filed under: Web 2.0 | 7 Comments
Tags: o'reilly, rss, Semantic Web, Web 2.0
Interesting take. I invite you to participate in the conversation we’re having at my blog in regards to this issue http://www.jeffro2pt0.com/web-30-dead-already/ The best definition for Web 2.0 I have found is that, “It is a series of concepts and those concepts can be different per individual”
Hey Kasper
I don’t think that there is much else to add to this. I feel you have included everything you need to know about web 2.0. However, you haven’t included the effects this could have on music online. As a result of web 2.0 and the development of the internet music has become much easier to access via the World Wide Web.
Thank you
Mandy
I really like how you’ve divided this up neatly into categories of technology and social uses. But I wonder if Web 2.0 as a phenomenon is a mesh of the two. The same sorts of arguments could be had about radio. Is it the box on the kitchen bench? Is it a series of professional practices? A means of transmitting information from one place to another? Or is it a type of audio programming?
It might be more interesting to consider these things an ecology of web 2.0, which blends technologies allowing new types of activity (Amazon notwithstanding) and new types of social interaction informing technological development. Then the question about whether this is evolution and revolution becomes more challenging and interesting.
And the bigger question is — what do you do with this from the perspective of music business online?
This is a pretty exhustive post on web 2.0, literally leaving no cyber stone unturned! Interesting my friend, I think I can learn a lot from your blogs
I found this article entitled,‘Is Web 2.0 Killing the Semantic Web?’ on one of O’Reilly’s websites which I found quite informative. In this he sets out a basic distinction between Web 2.0 and the Semantic Web.
I would lean towards your idea that RSS is actually more part of the Semantic Web than Web 2.0 after reading this…
“The Semantic Web is the polar opposite [of Web 2.0]: standardise all your data in RDF; encode it in XML (OK, so there’s also N3, but it’s probably mostly going to end up as XML); create your OWL. And then, once you have all this standardised data, let the machines loose on it! Because this data is for computer consumption, the SW should be more or less transparent to its users.”
As RSS uses XML to work, Zambonini would suggest that it is a SW feature rather than one of W2.
Can anyone answer the question as to why we have applied version numbers to the internet when the internet is not ONE thing?
While I’m not trying to justify the term Web 2.0. You should remember that the Web is not the internet. As Dubber puts it:
This suggest that the WEB is ONE part of the internet, and remember the internet has been around long before Tim Berners Lee invented the ‘World Wide Web’ in the beginning of the 90’s. And if you look at it in the context of Web 2.0 being merely technology based web applications/software, then the term can maybe be justified to the extend, that these numbers are normally used by software engineers to mark releases of particular software.
Just a thought…