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:4, Insightful)
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.
A hack of a hack of a hack... (Score:5, Insightful)
Give the browser a break people! It's seen enough abuse!
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.
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?
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".
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
But
The technologies are becoming more stable and ubiquitous. But they aren't "new". JavaScript is still JavaScript. Making it asynchronous is good and useful, but it isn't new and it isn't changing anything that wasn't already discussed, planned and in production.
We're getting back to the "thin client" model that was pushed more than a decade ago.
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 the same league as the time they cobbled together a few pages to see what the fuss was about. That's like a web developer's perspective on software engineering if all he's ever touched is JavaScript rollovers.
Even if you don't consider the latest "Web 2.0" applications, serious web development has always been more than simply throwing a few pages together. It's complex stuff. Jeremy Zawodny has written a couple [zawodny.com] of times [zawodny.com] on this topic.
RSS (Score:3, Insightful)
For some strange reason, that statement sends shivers down my spine.
ugh (Score:1, Insightful)
After 20 years in the field, I've seen it over and over again. I start to realize why so many older techies are so damn bitter.
For the record, my personal "ax to grind" is data management: first we had hierarchical databases, then network, then SQL, then network again (but now it's "object"), and finally hierarchical (now called "XML"). Completely ignoring the single model that encompasses all of them. But I digress...
Like a lot of this taxonomy, I'm NOT SURE WHAT WEB 2.0 IS EXACTLY. However, the main points seem to be:
1) use of Ajax in your app's primary interface so that it works more like a "regular" desktop app.
2) giving your app a second interface which is "well-documented" (so the app can be automated). For example, an XML-RPC API.
3) Avoiding complexity.
4) Using certain fonts and graphical design.
#1 is definitely nothing new. Graphical network apps have been around since X11 at least. Of course in many cases I prefer a well-designed Ajaxy app to one that has to reload all the time, so this is generally a good thing for web apps. However, I repeat, it's NOTHING INNOVATIVE, unless you're looking exclusively at the universe of web apps.
#2.. well, you know, to me there is NO LOGICAL DIFFERENCE between documented, easily-parsed HTML and intuitive URLs, vs. an XML-RPC interface. In other words, they could just be combined into one API that can be used by both humans and machines. Though I can understand how using Ajax would complexify the HTML interface to the point were it's better to create a new API.
Side note: in coding against some "web 2.0" apps, I have to resort to screen-scraping anyway, because they leave out data from the XML-RPC interface. But then they fall out of sync sometimes, it seems.
#3 this is a bit of a lie, since the total system from the silicon on up is MUCH more complex than before. And the Javascript/HTML/Ajax stuff is a nightmare of complexity, though for some reason people have convinced themselves that it isn't.
#4, yeah, somewhat tongue in cheek, but haven't you noticed that everything that's "Web 2.0" seems to have a certain "look and feel", which of course means nothing from a logical, fundamental point of view, but it's there.
So, I'd have to disagree, Web 2.0 is just another wave of new terminology, half-baked concepts, and the occasional step backward. Plus the usual lack of precision and reliability. Just like we get every 5-10 years in this industry.
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.
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: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 of nonsense or some unneeded neologism that is making much of nothing. Well, the most heartfelt descriptions I hear from Web 2.0 advocates on what it is to be Web 2.0 seem to maintain one tagline: Web 2.0 is live online collaboration and sharing (occasionally "real-time" is thrown in there somewhere, too).
What exactly is that supposed to mean? The earliest messageboards represent "live collaboration and sharing". Web-based "chat sites" are well represented by the summary "live collaboration and sharing" (with "real-time" thrown in there somewhere, even!). This point is utterly moot. The most bold marketing point chosen by Web 2.0 advocates is a complete straw man designed to peak the curiosity of inexperienced entrepreneurs and businessfolk.
The technology empowering "Web 2.0", as repeatedly rehashed on your own Slashdot, is a non-standard mesh of previously existing technology. We have corporations and even the "little guy" running around trying to impress with a buzzword when nobody can even *really* agree on its meaning! Does the use of AJAX instantly define a website as Web 2.0? Does text enclosed in div elements defined to have rounded corners for a style make a website 2.0? To what extent must AJAX be employed to reach the "Web 2.0" checkered finishing line?
In the world of buzzwords, many of us developers have been slapped in the face without even realizing it yet. This is 1999's "dot bomb" all over again. We are actually prescribing to the theory that there even is a "Web 2.0" and are desperately struggling to comply with something totally intangible! I've listened to rants by developers claiming that even the most mundane sites, "MySpace", "youtube", "plentyoffish", even "eBay", are apparently "Web 2.0". This, I do not fucking understand. These are all popular websites with some successful gimmicks, sure. They are all VERY successful financially, however, I am almost being led to believe that our latest incarnation of "Web 2.0" is that it is merely an insubstancial "glittery star sticker" being placed on even moderately successful cash-cow websites. "For the same low price, now with twice more Web 2.0!". It's amazing the kind of crackpot bullshit we're forced to listen to every time an article like this comes up. As a long-time software (and web) developer and self-made entrepreneur, I find this utterly reprehensible.
As an aside, I was doing some drywall work in a house I'm renting out the other day when I chuckled, paying special attention to the smooth rounded corners I had to dig out of the drywall in order to fit the sheet around an electrical box in the place's ceiling. I would have to guess that I've made that drywall pretty fucking Web 2.0. Scribble some goddamned JavaScript on the roof in pencil and bam, I'd have a world-class enterprise configuration empowering corporations and live collaboration, stuck full of synergy and all that jazz.