Web 2.0 is just hot air

Somebody give Rick Segal some stock options!

Finally someone has the balls to say that Web 2.0 is all hot air. He writes:

For example: Content Management is Web 1.0 while Wikis are Web 2.0. Gimmie [sic] a break. Wikis ARE content management dressed up a web service on top of a database engine that tracks content and, wait for it, changes to that content, in other words: Content management.

My sentiments entirely. I've been trying to work out what Web 2.0 will mean to organisations like ours, and have been waiting for that Eureka! moment. But the more I think about it, the more I think that Web 2.0 - whatever your definition - is really no different to what we already had/have. It's just that people are creating more useful things!

What has actually changed is context. More people, more often, with faster, more reliable connections means that more value can be derived, and make the internet a more appropriate environment for the kinds of applications that are being said to typify Web 2.0. People no longer just dip in and out of the internet like they used to - it's just there, all the time, available to be used.

Rick provides some wise advice:

Do not get caught up in all this stuff. Right now, if you are working on solving a problem and looking to make money from the solution,  focus on the customer and take advantage of what your ancestors, those Web 1.0 old farts, have done for you.

Amen.

Published 04 October 2005 09:01 by Niall Cook

Filed under: Miscellaneous, Marketing Technology

Comments

• 

  Anton Raath said:

  I would agree with Rick Segal that Web 2.0 is over-hyped and is being abused to sell the same tired old rubbish that used to pass as Web 1.0, but it certainly isn't all hot air. As you say yourself: "It's just that people are creating more useful things!"
  
  Perhaps this is the defining statement for Web 2.0, in that we're making the web work for us rather than the other way around. Sure, many sites classified as Web 2.0 require loads of bandwidth (like Flickr), but many others don't (del.icio.us and Basecamp, for example). As Tim O'Reilly says on his Web 2.0 meme map: it's an attitude, not a technology. We changed the way we think about the web, so we just bumped up the version by a single digit.
  October 6, 2005 08:49
• 

  Shrikant Joshi said:

  Hi there Niall,
  
  I followed you from Steve's post. Just wondering, which of the two signups (The Colayer signup or the Workshops signup?) were you talking about?
  
  So let me get this right, you believe that context is not important for a knowledge management company? You statement sounded a li'l vague to me. Care to explain? So what exactly are you looking at? Context or aggregation or both?
  
  This is the first time I am visiting your blog. And I am impressed by the statement on the top-right. Welcome to collective conversation.
  
  Since you are a collective conversation company, I think you would be interested to take a look at our platform. We call it the Layer. Go ahead, give it a try. And do tell me if content and aggregation can or can't be managed :) The details for signup are available on Steve's post that you commented on.
  
  Just a snippet, I think you may be interested in: We are Colayer web conversations. :)
  
  Cheerio!
  Shrikant Joshi
  
  PS: I am not a bot. I was just looking around for people matching our interests, since social software and Knowledge management are the buzzwords today [although, I must admit, I haven't the faintest idea what they EXACTLY mean :) ]
  October 7, 2005 16:27
• 

  Niall Cook said:

  Anton - agreed.
  
  Shrikant - if you're not a bot, why do you feel the need to tell me? Not sure where you got the idea I thought that context wasn't important either. If you're responding to a comment I left on someone else's blog, please continue the discussion there or contact me via my feedback page. (PS. I won't be trying your platform)
  October 8, 2005 14:10
• 

  Jeff said:

  Yeah, Niall, I'd have to agree with Anton. Web 2.0 is not all hype. Many sites are simply better connected to one another through Web services and linking than before.
  
  For example, without your blogroll and practice of linking out, I might not know about all those interesting PR blogs. You'd just have a homepage circa 1999. Without Web services, some of those same bloggers couldn't help fund their habit by linking to their favorite Amazon.com books.
  
  There will always be silly, opportunistic people who try to align their businesses with hot concepts. But don't let that ruin the concept for you.
  
  
  October 14, 2005 03:54
• 

  Niall Cook said:

  Jeff,
  
  I can assure you that there is no danger of the concept being ruined for me, and would point out that I purposely didn't use the word "hype" anywhere in my post.
  
  I don't actually think Web 2.0 is all hype. I was however agreeing with Rick Segal that too much focus is being put on the label by people who want to make a fast buck.
  
  Hope that clarifies things for you.
  October 14, 2005 09:34
• 

  Cindy Rockwell said:

  Actually, call it what you will, we work with clients where there is a real gap between what the industry has done and can manage with so called Web 1.0 content or knowledge management systems and where the world can go with solutions like CustomerVision BizWiki which blend the needs of corporate security with the need for communication and knowledge sharing in an easy to use manager for explicit and tacit knowledge.  
  
  Being an old IT person myself the days are past when IT should control the content being placed on the web by a business person.  Business users are already doing it today in many forms, it is just that there has been nothing easy like a wiki to perform their job effectively with little burden.  
  
  So, call it Web 2.0 or the next evolution I agree, technology changes, business' change and the web's role is changing with it.
  September 1, 2006 15:47
• 

  Bob Jones said:

  CustomerVision is all hype. Check out the knowledge base app yourself and ask for a customer list that even gets close to their proclaimed 100 customers.
  
  Web 2.0 affords lots of benefits, but CV is not one of them.
  September 14, 2006 20:25
• 

  cowfish said:

  Web 2.0 is by no means a technological evolution. There is little to no new technology difference between the so-called Web 1.0 and 2.0. But in the eyes of marketers and businessmen, it is. Saying that Web 2.0 is a technological success is insulting to the practise of computer science and software engineering.

  The overall innovation in Web 2.0 is actually quite superficial, depending on how you define innovation.

  Before Web 2.0 there was already the idea of the semantic web and it was already being practised. Before Web 2.0 there were already social web applications. There were already news sites that allowed comments. There were already newsletters. All these form the basis of the small Web 2.0 "novelties".

  It's way over-the-top to say that Web 2.0 is something that has never been done before. Web 2.0 has ...

  - Added tag clouds (tag clouds are just a graphically different version of the "most visited links")

  - Websites look shiny and minimalistic

  - RSS (gee people sure make a big deal about this). RSS involves putting data in a structured flat file and "broadcasting" it. On-demand updates that took info out of a file or database were in use way before Web 2.0.

  - People can comment on other people articles (oh wait, you could do that before Web 2.0)

  - A bunch of almost useless web applications such as Twitter.

  and so on ...

  Web 2.0 was here way before the concept of Web 2.0 was conceived. At best, Web 2.0 is simply a "clean up" and standardization of the Web.

  February 2, 2008 17:52