Web 2.0, To Me:
As a person who constantly fears ridicule web 2.0 means that no action is safe. Everything that can be posted on the web is open to discussion, by your friends or by enemies. Web 1.0 are the websites of my childhood, those simple mostly informational or graphics heavy websites with little interaction from the web population. Web 2.0 incorporates many interesting aspects of the internet but the most prevalent is user interaction and creation. These are modern websites, all of which include comment boxes or chat boards for interaction. This means users can create personal profiles and network but also that corporations can sell to that specific type of user.
However, for all its glory I feel web 2.0 is wasted on the users. As smart as web 2.0 sounds on paper it merely boils down to insignificant people posting insignificant things with a third party trying desperately to sell things to those people. On paper it sounds like a tool scientists use to transfer information to other scientists and do something sweeping and noble like curing cancer. In reality web 2.0 is nothing more than College kids sharing crazy party pictures through Facebook and tweeting about their completely irrelevant day. Should some interesting or revolutionary idea ever spring up on the internet it’s disheartening to realize at any time the government can simply hit the shut-down button on the entire internet.
For the future of the internet I predict a lot more policing. With the creation of the SOPA and PIPA laws the government seeks to find a way to control web 2.0 under the guise of stopping piracy. I predict shortly they will seek to end web 2.0 through tougher laws on cyber-bulling, on credit-card fraud or on copyright infringement. In short, hold on to your twitter this freedom of speech is too nice a thing for the powers that be to let us have it forever.
Web 2.0 Fancy Edition:
Web 2.0 is definitely a confusing concept but one impossible to avoid with the explosion of social media in the last decade. To get the best definition of web 2.0 why not consider looking at a web 2.0 website. Wikipedia.org defines web 2.0 as, “associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web.”[i] Ironically, with its user-centered wiki software Wikipedia.org is a living breathing example of web 2.0 in action. Web 1.0 was a simple page from a text book scanned and pasted on the web. Web 2.0 is the user-centered interface that is changing the structure of the internet.
Web 2.0 is not simply about Myspace and Facebook. Web 2.0 is changing commerce as we speak. While holidays like Black Friday have been celebrated by consumers for years the emergence of a new holiday, Cyber Monday shows a striking trend in consumerism. E-commerce, offers a new shopping experience for the consumer. David Fry, writer for E-commerce Times offers this perspective on the convergence of web 2.0 and consumerism: “Web 2.0 technologies provide for heightened levels of interaction on Web sites, and consumers expect that same level of interaction when shopping online.”[ii] This means that little review box that appears on amazon.com after a sale is more important than you think. That review box is your link to amazon.com, your link to web 2.0, and your chance to be heard.
Web 2.0 is not without critics. Paul Graham, internet commenter writes that web 2.0 has meaning, but, “those who dislike the term are probably right, because if it means what I think it does, we don't need it.”[iii] According to Graham, “[web 2.0] just means doing things right, and it's a bad sign when you have a special word for that.” Graham’s ideas of “doing things right” means having web based applications that work as well as software installed on your desktop, democracy on the web, and excellent treatment of users by the corporations running the web 2.0 application.
While the concept of web 2.0 may be complicated it is definitely going to affect the web and thus everyday life for years to come.
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