Josh Russell

So where did web 2.0 come from? I’ve just signed up for Andy’s conference, d:construct, and I’m quite excited. Not because it’s going to be interesting to hear about everybody’s projects and how they wrote and, I guess, are marketing them, but because, I want to hear what Web 2.0 means to people. I hope that these are the people that will help me understand what all the fuss is about.

I consider us to be at Web 1.5, and that in itself is generous.

To compare it to mobile phone technology, Web 0.5 (web beta?) was analogue GSM, 1G, which then became digital, or 2G, then we added GPRS as an interim fix while we all waited for 3G. GPRS became known as 2.5G. it didn’t do a lot more, but maybe a bit quicker, ok and the pricing structure was a bit different… Maybe this isn’t the best analogy…

What I’m trying to say is this, isn’t the Web 2.0, as it’s being talked about now, our GPRS. It’s doing all the same stuff we’ve always known the web can do but a little bit quicker, or in this case prettier.

So I’m going to call it Web 1.5.

Web 2.0 for me is something different. The current state certainly doesn’t warrant a whole version increase.

Web 2.0 is psychological. This, as I will show, is true In all cases but refers to different things. Web 2.0 for a web developer is what we’re doing now. We’re using JavaScript, CSS and some backend integration to do clever data exchanges and then display them in a pretty way. Web 2.0 for a user is a whole different thing. If we consider web 1.0 to be the web as we have grown to know and love it, then surely the next “versionâ€? of that is going to be quite drastic?

Web 2.0 is what you may call Web 3.0. Actually I hate the numbering thing. Web 2.0 is something that may simply boil down to a single login. Simple eh? But what does that mean? The implications of this cover many subjects: privacy, customer relationships, trust, and ultimately data ownership. Ok maybe this is further off than Web 2.0, maybe this is going to have a new name! This is about remote living, entrusting your life to a virtual place, hard to fathom.

In real terms it means replacing most of the function of the traditional browser and logging in to your “browserâ€? whenever you use the internet (web?). I hate to say it, but the Microsoft Passport was a great idea! Although that’s not exactly what this is about, it was certainly a stepping stone across the river. Why not have the same login for all the tools you use on the Internet? I guess why not is because it means that one company could potentially own the access and storage of your data.

Obviously, this is just a small technical and political point to get over. The real problem is how do people make money out of this. Well that’s simple! They just keep doing what they always did, of course.

I think I’ve said far too much. Let me complete these (probably) highly contentious views in a later post. Web 2.0 will be exciting, I hope that I’m slightly right about how it will turn out :)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 2nd, 2005 at 11:00 pm and is filed under Design, Drunken Ramblings, Web 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.