
Social Computing and Badger's Paws 123
An anonymous reader writes "When Yahoo!'s Jeremy Zawodny recently asked What the heck is Web 2.0 anyway? he received a set of responses reminiscent of those garnered by The Register back in 2005, which famously concluded, based on its readers' responses, that Web 2.0 was made up of 12% badger's paws, 6% JavaScript worms, and 26% nothing. Nonetheless, as Social Computing (SoC) widens and deepens its footprint, another Jeremy — Jeremy Geelan — has asked if we are witnessing the death of 'Personal' Computing. SoC, Geelan notes, has already become an academic field of study. But perhaps Social Computing too is just badger's paws?"
Badgers belong firmly in web 1.0 (Score:5, Funny)
Oh - anyone who hasn't already seen the animation linked above, make sure you watch right to the end - the punch line is hilarious!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
A bunch of sell indulgent self-observers attributing great significance to their own blather. Not entirely unlike SlashDot and this very post.
The story is so self absorbed is leaves you wanting to quote the Geico Cave man: uh, WHAT!??!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
As far as I can see the only great strive forward in 20 years is kids can now dub sound into other videos and have them and their pictures hosted free someplace while they tyle "lol" or "oh, that sucks" all day.
Could we call it the vacuous eye-candy revolution instead?
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
(Stupid lameness filter. I'm *trying* to yell. Piss off!)
Re: (Score:2)
True... but if you watch it long enough (or use it to annoy your fellow cow-orkers long enough) the audio will eventually go out of sync with the video. Truely hillarious.
Re: (Score:2)
Ya.. (Score:2)
And if you love that... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Absolutely not!
It was in fact the invention of running Linux on a dead badger [strangehorizons.com], in 2004, that introduced the Web 2.0 age!
Re: (Score:1)
LIAR! (Score:3)
I'm going to sue you because of the terrible trauma [slashdot.org] you have given me!
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Kids and their newfangled web 1.0. I remember when the internet was green on a black background...
Re: (Score:1)
It even has a focus on bitter nostalgia and griping about the lack of the future.
Re: (Score:2)
Also (Score:1)
We didn't even make the cut (Score:4, Interesting)
Slashdot wasn't even on this map!
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
I hate my brain sometimes, I really do.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
They said it wan't complete (Score:1, Funny)
Be nice to my poor comp.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:We didn't even make the cut (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
E2, on the other hand, didn't make the cut. It should be a fly speck somewhere between LJ and Wikipedia.
Re: (Score:2)
Nothing (Score:2)
Nah... It's just nothing (as in move along, nothing to see here).
Obligatory Installing Linux on a Dead Badger Post (Score:4, Funny)
Beaver pawing too (Score:2)
What's the other 56%? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What's the other 56%? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:What's the other 56%? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
web 2.0 is a buzz word (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
At least, I don't know if I've ever heard anyone seriously using it. Most of the times I've heard it mentioned was people making fun of others for using the term.
Maybe I just don't move in corporate enough of circles.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft tried to get on this bus with their Windows Live Mail [zdnet.com] but they had to roll back to Web 1.0 because of the design flaws inherent in the way this whole "Web 2.0" paradigm is supposed to work. The idea is basically this- you get rid of the desktop application, and use a browser to implement functionality. That involves downloading lots of Ja
Re: (Score:2)
It couldn't be that Microsoft built crappy stuff. Nope, must be the technology. After all, Gmail and Google Maps totally reverted to Web 1.0 after finding all these "inherent flaws". Oh wait, they didn't.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, that's what I thought too. We're using DWR and we're not having any of these problems (although Ajax is still one big hack). Maybe they're doing too much setup or something. But I can't take my own experience as a guide, because I don't work at a Microsoft shop. Who knows what they're doing.
Tim O'Reilly? (Score:4, Insightful)
Then again, he generally seems to take himself too seriously. What with the attempt to regulate blogosphere and all.
He's not the only one, though, since it wouldn't be much of a summit if only he was going there. There are a lot of people pining for the good ol' days of the 1.0 Bubble, and wanting to once again get big VC money for just having a web page and a sock puppet. Bubble 2.0 if you will. Cue trying to tell investors and each other that this time they're Web 2.0, see. Not the old failed Bubble 1.0, see. This time they have javascript and wikis and blogs and BitTorrent and whatnot, and a shiny happy everyone-participates model. _This_ time you'll get your money worth if you invest in them. Would they lie to you... again?
(And if that sounds stupid and made up, sadly it isn't made up. That's what makes Web 2.0 in Tim O'Reilly's own view and definition of it. See, it's 2.0, because now it has wikis, and blogs, and participation, and Google search, etc. And this time there's search engine optimization too, btw! And that all's _the_ recipe for not going bankrupt as a VC capital sink!)
Oh, wait... you meant perchance that nobody _sane_ is repeating it? Ok, in that case no objection.
Re: (Score:2)
That Tim O'Reilly guy is clearly
Re: (Score:2)
All the while, the practical usefulness is growing steadily.
Eventually people catch on again, and the expectation rises to match reality.
I don't think there is another bubble. I think all the hype about Web 2.0 is
Re: (Score:2)
Web 2.0 irks me a lot. Basically he saw. like everyone ele, where the internet was going, came up with an uninspired name for it, and marketed as his. Not just the name, but the whole concept. The worse part is people buy into it.
The man publishes books. Usually really good books and I ahve MANY.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah. "Web 2.0", I mean come on, we're supposed to be technology geeks here. I've been using Web 2.5TDi for the past year or so.
Re: (Score:2)
Internet Superiority Complex once again rears its ugly head...
Re: (Score:2)
If you define "Web 2,0" as a place where lots of people can sign up, some/all of them can post topics, and all of them can post comments, which is all blogs (I feel a little sick just using that word) and Slashdot are, then I've been using Web 2.0 ever since I got on the real Internet in 1998 when they were called message boards. I hear other people were using it even before that.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
26% nothing??!? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I thought Web 2.0 was Second Life. (Score:1)
Fury sex? (Score:1)
Now that sounds like an anger management technique I can ascribe to...
SoC (Score:3, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System-on-a-chip [wikipedia.org]
Clearly "Social Computing" doesn't have much to do with, well... computing.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You mean Web 2.0 is just a buzzword? (Score:4, Insightful)
Web 2.0 = Web 1.0 + marketing - page refreshes + dynamic content
So yeah, just do a little animation on your screen without the page refreshes, then hand it over to the marketing department and you'll be riding that next wave in no time all the way to the bank.
Not exactly, but close (Score:5, Insightful)
E.g., he sees personal web pages as soo Web 1.0, and replaced by wikis in Web 2.0. No, really.
I mean, seriously, it's sooo pase to just have your own resume on your own homepage. Make it a wiki so everyone can edit it! Surely reality works by consensus, and a million bored strangers who never heard of you before are more qualified than you to fill that content! Or, bah, corporate web sites are so dull. Make it a wiki, so random strangers can spice it up. (That was sarcasm, btw.)
E.g., ditto for sources of information. Having an authoritative source is soo Web 1.0, when you could just have a wiki instead. Wikis are the Web 2.0 way! And I don't even mean the sane way of using, say, Wikipedia as a starting point and following the links to the authoritative sources. No, no, no. He sees wikis as the _replacement_.
E.g., publishing content is soo Web 1.0. You should have everyone participate! Participation is the Web 2.0 way, don't you know?
So, yeah, forget about writing your own press releases and product manuals and FAQs. Let the community participate! Let perfect strangers and competitors spice it up. Imagine the possibilities! Imagine the excitement of checking each day to find out what perversions someone added to your company or product info! (Yep, you guessed, sarcasm.)
E.g., buying servers (e.g., from Akamai) to distribute your patches and executables is soo web 1.0. The Web 2.0 way is BitTorrent. Get on with the times.
I mean, hey, look at how excited WoW players were to get their ADSL's _outbound_ pipe stuffed up by a modified BitTorrent to download the patches. Not to mention at times being stuck with sucking a huge patch through a straw, from 1-2 other people's outbound pipe. Surely they'd barf if they could download the same patch in 5 minutes from a dedicated server without the hassle. (Sarcasm too, btw. It was actually a major gripe about WoW. See, for example, the Penny Arcade strip.)
Etc.
Now don't get me wrong, I can see some point in some of that stuff if it's an extra. Providing a forum for the users is pretty much expected anyway, and offering a torrent in _addition_ to the plain old download can't hurt at least. But presenting it as the _replacement_ to the boring old Web 1.0 stuff is... brain dead. It takes an unhealthy dose of techno-fetishism and techno-utopianism to see everything solvable by just more network buzzwords and a million networked monkeys writing reality by consensus.
It does fit with his other brain-damaged ideas, though, such as the call for censoring and regulating the blogosphere. The guy genuinely seems _that_ convinced that he can forge a whole utopian society on the Internet.
Re: (Score:2)
Participation... Call it Web2.0, but that IS the future. That's what people want. Competition, cooperation... It doesn't really matter, so long as it's multi-person. You see it everyone from contests online to pointless forum/irc chatter to video games.
Buying servers/bandwidth... If I'm distributing my content for free, why SHOULD I have to pay for the bandwidth? Why shouldn't the people that want my hard work for free be willing to chip in a little, especially when it doe
Re:Not exactly, but close (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that Tim O'Reily sees BitTorrent as a successor not to Sourceforge, but to Akamai. Which is distributed servers for large companies. We're talking the likes of MS, Yahoo, Symantec, AOL, etc. I don't think many people bought Akamai hosting for some small freeware utility they wrote.
And it's positioning it _there_ that makes me have a trouble with it. If I paid a ton of money for, say, Vista, the keywords are: paid money. We're not talking some free content. I think the least they can do is give me the patches in a fast and convenient way. I _don't_ want to use my outbound pipe, and having it stuffed, to participate in sharing MS's patches. MS can just keep paying for some civilized hosting, thank you very much.
That's really why I used the WoW patches as an example, because it's just what irks me. I'm paying a ton of money, and they can't even host their own freaking patches. It's not freeware and, frankly, I _don't_ think I have any obligation to chip in a little to help Blizzard's bottom line some more.
And if that kind of crap is (part of) what Web 2.0 is all about, then: no, thanks.
That, in a nutshell is all that bothers me about that part of the Web 2.0 concept.
Re: (Score:2)
Personally, I would prefer to pay the
Re: (Score:2)
If it was true that Blizzard using my outbound bandwidth is saving me money, then sure, it's an effective compromise (except that many ISPs are now blocking upload BT traffic in an attempt to kill Torrent, but that's another point entirely). I for one am not convinced that this is the case.
We've all heard the BS before. Episodic gaming! You get games at regular intervals, keeping you hooked and interested, and you the customers supply us with a steadier revenue stream so we don't have to suck $50 out of
Re: (Score:1)
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=AKAM&t=2y [yahoo.com]
They appear to be rather popular with the money crowd.
Re: (Score:2)
First of all, no it's not the future. Participation the present, and has been since any monkey who could install the Hotdog HTML editor de jour could write their own web page.
Secondly, not everyone wants to contribute to everything. I may wish to add a comment to an article, but I don't need to modify the article. I certainly don't need to modify someone's resume.
Foot fetishists of the world unite (Score:1)
Web 2.5 is Facebook.com (Score:2)
And if you have noticed, notice also that that's what all the HS and college folks entering right now will expect in terms of networkable social interaction. All content, across all devices, intelligently displayed, adapted to me.
I'm just waiting for Amazon.com to buy Facebook out.
Social computing? Their own enemy? (Score:2)
web 2.0... (Score:1)
Why the 'o' in SoC? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Because otherwise it fails to meet the minimum character count requirement of the TLA standard?
Or maybe because "SC" has already been claimed by "Secure Computing" (not to mention "South Carolina").
The eternal quest for money (Score:3, Interesting)
Pretty soon the Web grew and grew, and attracted the attention of those who perch, vulture-like, incessantly scanning the horizon for signs of free meals. How could they extract industrial quantities of money from this popular, but apparently useless phenomenon? The hunt was on, and an early burst of enthusiasm (the Dot Com era) led to general disappointment (the Dot Bomb crash).
But now there are more and more practical ways to make money from the Web, and those who find money more fascinating than technology, universal communication, planetary groupthink, etc., need a label to denote the Web in its capacity as a revenue stream. That is the essential meaning of "Web 2.0".
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
OK then, ARPAnet. I didn't want to clutter my earlier post with excessive pedantry, but that's what I meant.
Finally it's all clear (Score:1)
Web 2.0 is "after the crash" (Score:2)
Then the new phase gradually started,
Re: (Score:1)
you can do ANYTHING on web 2.0 (Score:1, Offtopic)
Whereas before? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Your explaination doesn't exactly make it clearer. WTF does that have to do with badgers' paws?
Re: (Score:1)
Andrew was hitting the MushroomMushroom again (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)