2.0 2.0

Paul Boutin expresses skepticism about Web 2.0

Apparently the big idea O'Riely has is collaboration. Hmm one might think that with that objective you might want to have one or two Web 1.0 luminaries at your conferences if only to have something to throw pot shots at.

The really bizare thing here is that Web 2.0 appears to be what Web 1.0 was about before it was hijacked by folk whose pretty transparent motivation was to find an alternative platform for Interactive Television i.e. television where the 'interaction' consisted of the ability to buy stuff.

Web Interactive Talk did everything that blogs are doing today back in 1994. What has happened since is not so much innovation as selection. Back in 1995 there were hundreds of conventions being used to organize information and dialogue on Web sites. People can't use a hundred different organization methods, choosing one is better than presenting people with a hundred.

The real point is not innovation then, its selection. Back in 1995 people were focusing on the technology, and in doing so they were missing the whole point. The point of the Web is not technology, its people. And people don't work on 'Web time'. The blogs of today are actually somewhat less sophisticated then WIT which not only had threading, it had lightweight semantic links that made it possible to track discussions more effectively.

I don't think its yet time for systems like WIT, people can only take so much at one time. When we watch a movie today we are interpreting it through our understanding of layers of convention that have evolved over decades. The staccato 'European style' of editing used in Die Another Day would have been considered incomprehensibly avante garde when the first Bond movie was made. The standard in the day of Goldfinger required every scene to have an establishing sequence, if a character flew to Rio there had to be a shot of the plane taking off and landing. Today we skip the plane entirely and cut straight from Q's office to Carnival.

Update: John Dvorak on Web 2.0