You would think that because I'm young, I'm blogging, and I'm into new initiatives, that I'd probably fall into the "Web 2.0" groupies category.
Well, guess again, whilst I am all for the increase in user interaction on websites, and user generated content. Whenever I hear "Web 2.0" or something based off the term (eg. Gov 2.0) I cringe… In fact, a little part of me dies. And here's why…
For those who are new to my Blog, my name is Owen, and I work as an IT Officer for the Faculty of Information Sciences & Engineering at UC.
I'm 21 years old, which places me well and truly as a member of Gen Y. I do many stereotypical things that are associated with our Generation. I blog, facebook, love fast internet and real time status updates, and have many many tech devices integrated into my life. My phone, of course is rarely away from my side. Along with these, I multitask alot – often with a multitude of tabs and windows open on my desktop, several books I'm reading scattered around my desks. My desk is arranged to support the functionality of my workstation. On one desk I have two widescreen monitors arrayed at the back to my main PC, a secondary PC with a monitor hooked in on the left, and in front of it all is another widescreen which is often used to extend my laptop. Along with my laptop, I have an eee PC, and a PDA. And on the Phone side of things I also have a blackberry…
Why am I telling you this? It's to show you my association with "Gen Y", of all the people to take a dig at something that is A-Typical of Gen Y, surely it is a member of it.
I would actually like to add another term to our already term-saturated generation… and that is the "Slogan Generation". Everything needs to have a slogan, a buzzword, something that picks up our ears and grabs our attention. Political figures adopt slogans in order to sell themselves to our generation (Kevin07), social justice groups create catchy slogans to get people in on their aid events, and we even now have a slogan slapped on the internet to make it sound hip and new and exciting… and quite frankly, on this last point, I am sick of it.
Web 2.0
Firslty, what is Web 2.0?
- The term "Web 2.0" is commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered …
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0 - The second generation of the World Wide Web, especially the movement away from static webpages to dynamic and shareable content and social networking
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Web_2.0
I would point out several interesting points. The domain of the term is in the area of "web applications", with a general movement from static to dynamic content and social networking. It focuses on the end output, and ability to interact as opposed to the underlying architecture.
So that's Web 2.0, what then was the first generation of the Web? (Google define – downloaded 1:15 PM 7/6/2010)
- network: an interconnected system of things or people
- World Wide Web: computer network consisting of a collection of internet sites that offer text and graphics and sound and animation resources through the hypertext transfer protocol
A quick glance at Wiki gives us a few more pearls of wisdom; Speaking of the initial proposal by Robert Cailliau for the web:
This proposal estimated that a read-only web would be developed within three months and that it would take six months to achieve "the creation of new links and new material by readers, [so that] authorship becomes universal" as well as "the automatic notification of a reader when new material of interest to him/her has become available."
Interesting – "The creation of new links and new material by readers, [so that] authorship becomes universal". The web would intrinsically be a socially generated and driven medium. This proposal was put forward in 1990. Wiki then suggests that the latter have only just found fruition in the forms of Web 2.0, and RSS. For the latter, I agree partially, but on the prior, I think such a jump is unwarranted.
From the very early days of the internet, it has been fairly easy to set up your own website. I did my first way back in primary school. This was socially generated content – was it not? Of course, I had very little skills to do much more than simply a static page, but already the web was there, ripe for the picking. I could embed things such as pictures, videos, and sound effects, I could even do some tricky scrolling fonts if I was particularly on the ball. As the years progressed, very few things have changed to that initial functionality of the web, except for one thing. The major movement between the internet's infancy and now is NOT found in it's social focus, and is NOT found in it's user generated content, the major movement has been in the EASE of generating that content.
Sure, the languages have changed, there are more tools available to create and generate content, and they are now more flexible in the way that they allow you to present that content; But nowhere is there a sufficient change to claim that there has been a substantial shift in what the web essentially is.
The capability has always been there, it has merely taken time for us to discover that it is there and usable. It started with comment pages, and forums, and has now developed into things such as facebook and yammer. This latest buzz word of "Web 2.0" is useless in picturing anything of the reality of the web. From it's very infancy it was about social interaction and connectivity, and now people are discovering that is to such a point that they can interact and connect using the web, with limited expertise and knowledge and so ARE connecting using it.
So what do you guys think – Hot or Not? Is Web 2.0 all it is cracked up to be, or is it merely a buzz word for the masses?
- Owen