Web 2.0 As A New Wave of Innovation? 174
Vitaly Friedman writes "In his article in the recent Educause magazine, Bryan Alexander, Director for Research at the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE), presents a comprehensive analysis of the rising web 2.0 companies and describes the emerging of web 2.0. From the article: ' ... larger players have entered the field, most notably Yahoo, which has been buying up many projects, including Flickr and del.icio.us. Microsoft is considering a massive extension of RSS. And Google has been producing its own projects, such as the Lens RSS reader and Google Maps. Meanwhile, academic implementations are bubbling up, like the social bookmarking and search projects noted earlier. This Web 2.0 movement (or movements) may not supplant Web 1.0, but it has clearly transformed a significant swath of our networked information ecology.'"
So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So... (Score:3, Insightful)
Honestly I have read 'Web 2.0' too many tme recently on
Re:So... (Score:3, Interesting)
"web 2.0" is a great buzzword. why? it describes something legitimate -- the confusing rush of new internet ideas from the past few years, and it's ugly as sin.
good buzzwords should hurt to say. "blog" is a great buzzword. it won't be in the english language in 30 years, except to talk about this time. it's just too hideous of a word. "morph" on the other hand, is going to fucking stick around for ever. it's just passable enough, and
Re:So... (Score:3, Informative)
"Morph" is from the Greek meaning "form, shape" and is used in a metric crapload of words that you probably don't object to -- ectomorph, morphology, polymorphic, metamorphosis. "Morph" is merely a short form of "metamorphose," has different connotations, and doesn't "rot away" at Engli
Re:So... (Score:2)
just because the word is from somewhere doesn't mean it isn't a silly word coined to describe a hollywood (kinda lame) special effect that means "change" or "transform" in any other context.
Just as meta- is a perfectly legitimate prefix, its new use as a standalone adjective is silly, and dumb.
Re:So... (Score:2)
Re:So... (Score:2)
I work in internet design and programming, and I am constantly amazed at the amount of horrible bullshit that has to come out of my mouth
Re:So... blog (Score:2)
Blog will probably be a word from 2006 that sticks around in 40 years. A "newspaper" could become a "newsblog" in rather short order.
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, baby! (Score:2)
Let's party like it's 1999!
...and yet (Score:2)
Folks who use Google Maps don't know or care what's powering it, so if it takes pretense or puffery to get real work done, that's OK with me.
Re:So... (Score:3, Insightful)
What is Web 2.0?
To the businessman, perhaps it is rounded corners effected with CSS or a bunch of grandiose words chosen due to their presence in a thesaurus. To the critical "veteran" developer, it may seem to be a bunch
Web 2.0 is DEPRECATED (Score:1, Funny)
Trademark violation (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Trademark violation (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Trademark violation (Score:2)
Nooooo! (Score:5, Insightful)
It rised when people said Java applets were so Web 2, then it rised again when blogs and RSS was so Web 2, then it rised again when Google made JS interaction popular (again), a bit later it rised again when a marketing company coined the term for what Google does "AJAX", then again with Flickr, YouTube, Digg and so on, and I'm telling you I'm already sick of the damn Web 2.0.
Do you know what happens with too much buzz and hype? You let people down and make them sick up to their necks. I hate the damn Web 2.0 and have no idea what THE HECK it is anymore.
And I'm a web developer, let alone businessmen and the casual Internet surfer.
Re:Nooooo! (Score:1)
Re:Nooooo! (Score:4, Funny)
I love zombies. Just brain them and they fall over. So the next time someone mentions "Web 2.0" and whatever new technology of the day in the same breath, just whack 'em in the head and move along.
Re:Nooooo! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Nooooo! (Score:2)
Re:Nooooo! (Score:2)
Re:Nooooo! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Nooooo! (Score:4, Funny)
Actually, I thought at first you were arguing over whether the past participle is "risen" or "rose". So I went back and read the parent post.... Yup. Pretty amazing display of illiteracy, that....
Re:Nooooo! (Score:2)
You need to think outside of the box about the multimedia potential for the new Web 2.0 paradigms. Web 2.0 has already pioneered B2B information management infrastructure, location-based services software, and co-marketed proximity enabled facility authorization. Collaboration with Web 2.0 fuels the innovation that will power the integration of the next generation of worldwide technology with record brand recognition
Re:Nooooo! (Score:2)
You're paying too much attention to the marketing. Businessmen and casual surfers are only just beginning to hear about "Web 2.0" and though you may find it distasteful to hear the term over and over, you should recognize a good thing for your profession when you see it. Sure, it might make your skin crawl to have a client demand "Web 2.0" on everything, but it's money in your pocket!
Realistically, strip away the hype and don't
Re:Nooooo! Give me back my buggy whip! (Score:2)
Oh, so you're coding Web 2? Hehe, kids and their LEGO computers.
I may hire you to code Rich Client 2 and OOP 3 for me, stay tuned.
Re:Nooooo! (Score:2)
Web Returns
Web Forever
Web and Robin
The Web and The Furious
Web Begins
Web Trinity
Re:Real GUI's (Score:2)
The web is about documents. Tacking some simplistic widgets on is often more effective than taking a good GUI toolkit, adding an overly complex network protocol, and grafting on HTML or some other document format, then cross-compiling and distributing.
Note that I'm not saying that everything should be a web application, but you at least need to acknowledge what the web does well. Of course almost anyone can come up with a better proto
No (Score:5, Funny)
With twice the self importance of the original!
Re:No (Score:5, Funny)
Not this shit all over again... (Score:2, Funny)
Dude, it's boom/bomb time again! Everyone get on the meaningless buzzword bandwagon! "Web 2.0" man - the old rules don't apply any more!! Quick, buy everything in sight that claims to use "Web 2.0", whatever the hell THAT means this week! Let's see if we can get the Nasdaq up to 20,000 this time before we raze and burn the entire tech industry back into 1985! AWESOME!
Someone call the venture capitalists!!
Re:Not this shit all over again... (Score:2)
I think like the first wave of web innovation created a lot of good things and I expect this second wave to do likewise. As always we'll hear a lot of bold cliams, buzzwords, etc and new ideas will emerge but in the end the crap sinks and the good stuff hangs around.
We've always known that eventually rich interactions would be important to the web
And so (Score:5, Funny)
Listen to the sound of my voice. Inhale deeply, put your arms in a circle and say "Embraaaace", then exhale slowly pushing your arms out and say "Exteeeend".
Re:And so (Score:2)
Watch out though... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Watch out though... (Score:2)
Re:Watch out though... (Score:2)
A hack of a hack of a hack... (Score:5, Insightful)
Give the browser a break people! It's seen enough abuse!
Re:A hack of a hack of a hack... (Score:2)
"So much crap, they had to start a second pile."
Mimi Bobeck, "The Drew Carey Show" [go.com]
As in a "2.0" pile..
Re:A hack of a hack of a hack... (Score:1)
And, for the guy about to tell me to start coding, I have other things to do right now. When my kernel's working and I need a GUI, I'll be on it.
Re:A hack of a hack of a hack... (Score:2)
Re:A hack of a hack of a hack... (Score:2)
Or as much as they can pile onto a program designed to launch, manage, and standardize the interface of other programs.
What you're seeing is evolution, which takes the status quo as a given, and manipulates it towards whatever is presently more convenient, speciating as necessary. Paraphrasing a quote about Fortran: I don't know what they'll use in 2046, but some small subsystem of it will probably be lineally descende
Re:A hack of a hack of a hack... (Score:2)
Vacuum tubes? In my Core Duo? (Score:2)
Just because a browser can do lots of stuff doesn't mean its the best way to do it. A browser is perfect for presenting documents, simple input forms, and downloading real clients to do more complicated stuff.
It's about network services I think. (Score:2)
Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Although I still use my traditional desktop for heavy duty computational tasks in the graphics/physics area, I have been noticing that I feel the need for a traditional desktop less and less each month as Web applications keep getting better and better. I can certainly see myself relegating my workstation to only my specific work tasks and almost all of the rest of my daily computing tasks being done through cellphones/PDAs/PSPs outside/on the road and at with web browsers in my living room on my PS3.
Go try out some Web 2.0 tutorials(or whatever you want to call the set of technologies) to see for yourself. Despite the hype there is some serious good stuff going on.
did someone forget to replace the battery? Re:Yes (Score:2)
As a real end user, I can tell the web world of developers that untill you can get programming down as a genuine science rather than this witchcraft spells of coding and hype for sale.... Murphy loves you, yes he does. So don't make those of us who really honestly know better suffer more, buy selling your babeling BS to the stupid masses and that we unfortunately would
Re:Yes (Score:2)
Assured connectivity. (Score:3, Insightful)
Slammer already demonstrated how you could not depend upon bandwidth on the Internet to be always available. For a business, it's critical.
Now, the business might be moving to internal web servers and apps
Re:Yes (Score:3, Insightful)
Speaking as a web developer who is perfectly capable of writing "real software", I can tell you that this is certainly nothing new. The trouble lies with some ignorant software developers who view all web development as if it were in t
Re:Yes (Score:4, Insightful)
With the techniques developed over the past few years, we now have the capability to do what IE could do, but in a standard complient way that is generally more stable. It makes web applications that were nearly unusable, even in IE, become practical. A second innovation is moving beyond the web browser. Application like Google earth and Apple Dashboard applies general standards to specific OS. The front end is specilized, but the back end does not need to be.In fact this takes us back 20 years to the happy time when one could log into any service using any computer, with the modification that we now use a GUI instead of kermit.
Some naysayers may say this is dangerous because not everyone has an internet connection everywhere. Well, in the early 80's everyone said it was dangerous becuase everyone did not have a modem, but we all got one. Then in the 90's the internet was dangerous because it was sometimes hard to get a dialup line. Now, we are in situation where the telcos are trying to limit this commodity product that is bandwidth, and have even manage to reduce the availability of honest to goodness DSL by denying compition. The best way to break this nonsense to make wireless broadband as neccesary as radio, then have the common person complain continuously until we arrive at a solution. This is basically what broke the long distance nonsense. Kiddos, remember, there was a time when calling your neighbor cost tens of dolalrs an hour.
Re:Yes (Score:2)
Re:Yes (Score:2)
Re:Yes (Score:2)
I encountered pretty much that exact attitude from a group of contractors we hired to work on a web-based application a couple of years ago (it was a directory and mail service for a large governmental organisation in the UK).
There was a clear attitude that web programming wasn't "real programming", and that it was simple, toy stuff.
Funny thing was, some of their code was
networked information ecology (Score:4, Interesting)
Making the link between this and my views on Web 2.0 As A New Wave of Innovation is a task left to the reader. No points will be awarded for answering this question.
Re:networked information ecology (Score:3, Informative)
LOL Web 2.0 (Score:1)
Whatever it is Web 2.0 is made of, John Battelle [valleywag.com] will have an ad running on it someplace.
I hope you... (Score:3, Funny)
It's official (Score:4, Insightful)
This Web 2.0 movement (or movements) may not supplant Web 1.0
I remember PHBs saying equally ridiculous things about XML when it came out, how it would revolutionize the world and everything would magically talk to each other. Now we see people in all groups saying the same thing about 6 year old tech... oh, I mean, Web 2.0
So, um, can anyone tell me how HTML, JavaScript, and Stylesheets supplants, um...., HTML, JavaScript, and Stylesheets?
Ridiculous Hype (Score:2)
XML isn't a bad idea, for instance-- it gives a standard method of defining data transport, for instance. But it doesn't relieve each application of the responsibi
Long rant on XML, and a few thoughts on Web 2.0 (Score:3, Interesting)
XML isn't a bad idea, for instance-- it gives a standard method of defining data transport, for instance.
I've been wondering whether XML is really all that great of an idea. It makes sense to use it when, as you say, you need a standard way of representing data across multiple dissimilar systems. But a key notion behind XML is that unless an XML dataset is well-formed, attempts to parse that XML should fail.
This means XML makes sense to use when you need to represent data across multiple dissimilar
Re:Long rant on XML, and a few thoughts on Web 2.0 (Score:2)
Re:Long rant on XML, and a few thoughts on Web 2.0 (Score:2)
Having said that, well-formed XML is a very, very low bar of standard one can set for a data representation. I think you're stretching to suggest that one requires "bug free software" to generate well formed XML. One certainly can have buggy software and generate well-formed XML! But it's not much to ask for well-formedness, especially if you're dealing with machine-targeted document exchange! That's the bigge
Re:Long rant on XML, and a few thoughts on Web 2.0 (Score:2)
Perhaps you're right -- I have to admit that the only experiences I have had with XML have been with C and perl DOM parsers, and PHP5 (which handles XML as first-class data entities, and for all I know may be using the C DOM XML library underneath). I have not worked with a streaming XML parser -- though, are you sure these parsers are as flexible as you've made them out? The XML specification, section 5.1 [w3.org] seems to imply that a parser that parses a later section of an XML document without parsing some ear
Re:Long rant on XML, and a few thoughts on Web 2.0 (Score:2)
All I can do is wish that there was a sane, well-crafted, easily-parsed, fault-tolerant binary specification which enjoyed the same ubiquity.
Well, it doesn't solve all of the above, but YAML [yaml.org] is a great alternative, I th
Re:It's official (Score:5, Funny)
Asynchronous JavaScript and XML is being replaced by AJAX. It's totally new.
Re:It's official (Score:2)
Five steps backwards (Score:2)
Back in the days of DOS applications, everyone had to roll their own UI because DOS wasn't going to do it for them. MS-DOS Editor used a completely different UI style to WordPerfect, which was completely different again to Neopaint. Every developer had to re-invent the UI wheel because the underlying API was so primitive.
We've come on in leaps and bounds since then. Operating systems provide complicated widgets like tree views as standard, and applications generally have lots of things in common with one a
What is this bizarre compulsion? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's as stupid in its way as people "discovering" the Internet a few years ago. In their haste to stake claims all over it, they neglected to notice that it was actually a set of artifacts created, with considerable effort, by people who came before them.
And didn't we hear this once already with something called Web Services? Let's transport everything over Port 80, that's really innovative. If we must call it anything, let's call it Hubris 2.0. Maybe, like Madonna, it will eventually go away if we just ignore it.
MS(TM) RSS(TM) (Score:4, Insightful)
Let me guess, this will be a new Windows-only binary format that will have the ability to execute code.
Dear Microsoft,
Please keep in mind that that middle "S" stands for "simple".
"Web 2.0" (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe O'Reilly was trying to save us? (Score:4, Interesting)
All hail O'Reilly -- they tried to save us but we wouldn't listen!
slogan (Score:3, Funny)
Ajax isn't always better (Score:5, Interesting)
Using hidden Iframes and JScript was one way to do what Ajax does years ago. There are definately a few cases where it is really useful. A little div popup, pre-populating city state after a postal code was entered, testing a value etc. Debugging is much harder, and the Javascript/DOM model is hard to code bug free. Javascript errors don't get reported to the server admin, and they are often hard to replicate. This is partly a lack of good tools, but view source on HTML is almost always easier then trying to step thru some buggy jscript.
It can be very easy to abuse Ajax. I recently had someone show me a search example that "pre-populated" as you typed. It was super clunky and really didn't work. Ajax's biggest problem at this point is that everyone thinksd everything has to be instant now. You can make a user go to another page to edit something that is not edited every other minute.
As much as I love Google maps, Yahoo Flash maps kick their ass. Adobe's new Flex tech is really going to give Ajax a run for the money. Java is just to sluggish, but Flash is pretty quick. Yes you'll have to turn off your flash ad blockers.
The thing that has to happen is that SVG or a new standard needs to be born to handle GUI apps. People don't like flash because there is a name behind it, HTML is a standard, Javascript is a standard, etc. Java is Sun/IBM, Flash is Adobe ( formally Macromedia ).
Personally I would love to see an HTML 5.0....A pure XML based HTML is great, but pretty impractical given the huge amount of content that doesn't have the
tag, and just have
tags, etc. WTH did no one think to have a tag? Now I'm stuck with a million different Javascript/UL combos out there. Even adding a target to div would be great. Imagine a that would turn on a div and tell the browser to turn it on. With some style sheet properties you could make some powerful divs without code. [slashdot.org]
I guess my biggest gripe with Web 2.0 is that almost everything that we spend hours figuring out in JScript could be done if people would create more and better HTML tags. Then the browser developers take care of all the testing, and we will have more stable apps.
Personally I'm going down the Flash path. If you haven't tried Flex yet, labs.adobe.com, do yourself a favor and see what you've been missing....no I don't work for Adboe or even really like them
You can do more in less time, and you can create content that really looks good. I'd love to see a Flex slashdot version.
RSS (Score:3, Insightful)
For some strange reason, that statement sends shivers down my spine.
All new is forgotten old (Score:2)
I mean it's the same idea -- microcontent posted by participants of particular service (be it pictures, stories, daily updates), just done through the browser. Yes, it's easier to ask for money for snazzy new abbreviation, and it improves feeling of self-worthieness.
"We need to improve our Wiki presence in Web 2.0 and expand RSS feeds to all departments" sounds so much better than "Our documentation should be easy to use and all departments have to post
Web 2.0 and Slashdot (Score:2)
No, it's not a 'new wave' of anything (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Microsoft doesn't want the web to enable something that will threaten its monopoly in OS and Office software.
2. Existing (and upcoming) standards are broken for two reasons: a). Microsoft XAML (which could solve the problem beautifully) is not cross-platform, and XUL doesn't truly solve the problems - it still needs binary extensions to do anything meaningful and they aren't cross platform either.
Quite frankly, for something like Flickr, I wouldn't mind running a client app as long as there's an easy, reliable way of updating it (like what's implemented in Firefox - binary diffs). That app, however, must run on three platforms in order to work for me, because I use Mac OS X, Windows and Linux.
Re:No, it's not a 'new wave' of anything (Score:2)
What does MS have to do with it? Nobody got the OK from MS to create HTTP, HTML or web browsers.
Of course, if what you mean is that you want a common standard based on the above legacy technologies than it's not going to improve things much anyway. The solution isn't to make a universal JavaScript, it's to eliminate the need for JavaScript in most scenarios.
What does MS have to do with it? (Score:2)
Re:What does MS have to do with it? (Score:2)
A truly new approach isn't going to be based on any current browser, which means that IE's 85% of the browser market would be irrelevent. Many popular applications that run on the PC were not developed by MS. Historically MS's support and cooperation are not necessary for a successful product (obviously, it doesn't hurt).
Even Microsoft (Score:2)
Re:Even Microsoft (Score:2)
Re:No, it's not a 'new wave' of anything (Score:2)
It's kind of funny they're behind this whole asynchronous XML technology then. It's the closest to at least a widely adopted de facto standard doing what you describe that I've seen at least.
Cluetrain for the Post Columbine world (Score:2)
Slashdot just went web 2.0 (Score:2)
Web 2.0 is about experience not implementation (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be typical with a forum full of engineers to simply pass up web 2.0 as some marketing buzzword for a new implementation of something old. In many ways the attributes associated with what is being collectively called 'web 2.0' are simply old ideas implemented in a medium where they can succeed in a big way.
It's important to understand that the difference in the web is not in the implementation but in the experience of the end user and how content is created, managed, and distributed. Adaptive path has a writeup about this at http://adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archiv es/000547.php [adaptivepath.com]
The difference is important because it changes how developers and designers percieve the web when they are creating new things. There are many features of newer web software that contribute to the ways in which people use and experience the web.
My favorite is the preference in designing software for the long tail. Which is mentioned in Wired http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html [wired.com]
This is the practice of serving many niche markets with targeted software instead of building software to service all of the market and doing it badly. This causes less confusion, less clutter, better software and faster turnaround.
Some of the other features of the newer web software you might have already noticed are decentralization, remixability, co-creation, and their side-effect of emergent systems. Web services, niche software and the network effect all make these things much more feasible than they have been in the past since there are well defined frameworks for distributing services that are easy to work with and adding more niche services increases the value of all web software by a large amount.
Notice I didn't say AJAX or Ruby on Rails or Django or [insert your new framework or technology here]. These are merely details of implementation. If a framework makes your company faster then that's good. If a technology lets your user's client fetch web service data for them, that can also be good. These things are only technologies used to reach an end product. Web 2.0 could have been done in many languages and frameworks and on many platforms. That's not to say that certain languages, frameworks, etc. didn't have an effect on the design of the software, as any language or framework has a certain effect on the overall style of the developers using it.
This was about a need for developers and designers to move beyond what was status quo for interaction between websites and their users. They are taking full advantage of the tools they have created and the network that was built up over the past few decades. To belittle their efforts into something meaningless is to surely miss the entire point.
Re:Web 2.0 is about experience not implementation (Score:2, Informative)
Some of the other features of the newer web software you might have already noticed are decentralization, remixability, co-creation, and their side-effect of emergent systems. Web services, niche software and the network effect all make these things much more feasible than they have been in the past since there are well defined frameworks for distributing services that are easy to work with and adding more niche services increases the value of all web software by a large amount.
Did you use that random b
Re:Web 2.0 is about experience not implementation (Score:2)
Now, on this ocean of buzzwords, what is different from the old web?
Hype, but (Score:2)
However, and there's the 'but', Let's not forget how 'the web' (to me at least) was always kind of 'Internet 2.0'. There was archie, Veronica, USEnet, ftp, IRC, etc. etc. Who needed something that did all that sort of functionality but then in one big, fat, resource hog 'browser'. At some point there was so much 'web' or HTTP traffic that my in
ignore it all you want... (Score:2)
Which moron CVS-tagged the whole Web as "2.0"? (Score:2)
So so, someone tagged the whole web as "2.0" in the worldwide global CVS-REPO! I guess that repo is not the Wayback Machine (that's too spotty and doesn't maintain the whole revision history of the Web since gopher/veronica)...
disturbing (Score:2)
There is no Web 2.0 (Score:2)
Hold your horses yet !!! (Score:2)
Rounded corners (Score:2)
Re:Web 2.0 is so 2005 (Score:3, Funny)
KFG
Re:"Web 2.0" is really just "Web 1.x" (Score:2)
This is a great idea that probably won't happen. There's so much boiler-plate Javascript just to add capabilites that should have been part of the protocol from the beginning.