Bloggers, pundits, and industry analysts have been earnestly debating the question for a while: What will Web 3.0 be? Of course, they have their critics, those who call the term a lot of hype. Unfortunately, their critics need to get harsher. Web 3.0 is worse than a meaningless buzzword; its use is bad for communication, bad for the interactive field, and simply stupid.
I should put my cards on the table: I'm a communications guy, and interactive is my medium of choice. In other words, I can geek out like the best of you, but my concern isn't the technologies themselves but the ways people use them. My best work pairs me with someone who loves the technology and wants it to communicate. My friend Nate is like that. This is a guy who can write JavaScript (or XHTML, Flex, Java, PHP, CFM, and so on) the same way a native Frenchman uses his language to seduce an American tourist. Fortunately for Nate's wife, few women have undressed under the influence of JavaScript. But my point here isn't seduction; simply that I'm the communications part of the equation and quite aware that the other parts of the equation must be in place for everything to work.
Today, everyone is obsessed with Web 2.0. Yes, if you work in "the field," you may say the term is falling out of use. If you take a walk outside of the industry, however, it's actually gathering steam. Organizations are asking to Web 2.0-ify their sites — not quite knowing what they're asking for, but well aware that everyone else is doing it.
As someone who has to communicate with nontech people, I'm tired of explaining that Web 2.0 doesn't require a special browser. I'm tired of explaining it's not a thing but a concept … well, a bunch of concepts, even though people don't always agree about which concepts are included in the bunch.
Yes, we widely agree that "social media" is a big part of it. Many people include tools like AJAX and Flex, which allow for more dynamic presentations of content and make websites look and feel more like a desktop application. Others include XML and open APIs, which set content free from form and allow us to mix and mash content from different sources in ways the original creators may never have dreamed.
The problem with using the term Web 2.0 (and the burgeoning 3.0) is that it's applying software syntax to communications issues. Software developers carefully track versions to mark distinct changes in the technology. (Developers out there may argue that it's not that clear, but that's another debate.) The web doesn't have a development team to decide when the next release is. More to the point, when we talk about Web 2.0, we're not talking about a change of technologies. We are talking about changes in the ways people use the web, changes that have been facilitated by many new technologies.
The web also differs from software in that what is new does not necessarily replace what came before it. Often it augments it. Adobe Creative Suite 3 was intended to replace CS 2. Windows Vista is intended to replace XP. Web 2.0 did not replace 1.0.
The ramifications of this are significant. I can't count the times I've seen organizations that are heavily invested in Web 2.0 but have missed the Web 1.0 boat. Their information architecture is awful. Their user interfaces are unusable, and their web presence is completely out of brand. They have blogs, but are missing the true fundamentals.
If you're a company that's using social media to drive potential customers to your site, hopefully leading to purchases or other conversions, this is disastrous. If you are an information-rich site and nobody can find that information, what's the point of compiling all the data? If you look clunky to an increasingly interface-savvy population, you've lost your credibility — whether you've got an e-commerce site or online magazine.
About a year or so back, I was talking with my friend El, a usability analyst. Some of my earliest web projects were writing functional copy to improve the usability of sites her company was developing. When we were working in the late 1990s, she recalled, you really needed to test everything. Different companies' users could have radically different responses to a web interfaces. That's changed. Though usability testing is often critical, there's been significant codification of the language. People have expectations, some of them quite simple; if there's a company logo in the top left of the screen, users will assume it's a link back to the homepage. (I still see Web 2.0-invested companies that have their logos at the top of their site but don't use it as a link.) That language was developed in the retroactively named Web 1.0, and it hasn't gone away, though it does continue to evolve. The belief that we are in a Web 2.0 world has caused some to overlook the basics we learned during the web's first decade.
I also wonder if all this versioning is limiting our accomplishments by narrowing our view. Communications 101 tells us that language shapes the way we think; we are more likely to make our reality fit our words than the other way around. By defining what Web 2.0 is, have we stifled other applications of interactive technology? Well intentioned though it may be, the struggle to define Web 3.0 is a struggle that could stuff innovation into the confines of a box.
If our obsessive labeling doesn’t get in the way, there won't be a Web 3.0. Instead, there will be thousands of Web 3.0s. The technologies that fuel interactive media and the ways they are implemented are going in as many directions as there are creative minds to push them. The web is breaking out of its mold in every possible direction — from internet-enabled applications to mobile devices, from mash-ups to customized homepages to applications that function in browsers but feel like they're on your desktop.
With open APIs, XML, and a host of related technologies, people are creating tools whose real purpose is to allow others to find a purpose for them. Yes, Flickr is cool and so is Google Maps, but they're a whole lot cooler when you find they can be mashed together. What is Twitter for? Depends on who uses it. Don't like Twitter's web interface? Download a desktop application. Is MySpace a social site or a marketer's new frontier? Both. I SMS to my blog and receive IMs on my phone. In short, we are creating a web that is truly worldwide, one that stretches beyond computers and beyond information.
The whole point of defining Web 2.0 was to figure out where we are. Unfortunately for those who like buzzwords, we are everywhere. The whole point of discussing Web 3.0 is to figure out where we are going. Well, here's the news: We're not all going to the same place, and that is the beauty of this medium (or perhaps these mediums). The possibilities are endless and will continue to defy labels. We are just at the beginning of this "internet thing," and what comes next is going to be many things — some will die anonymous deaths and others will change the very nature of the way we communicate.
Your point about some companies missing the Web.1.0 point struck a chord. I got hired on as a blogger to draw attention to a website startup a while back, while there was no other advertising and marketing occurring. I'm not a marketer, but I had to bring someone in to consult simply because the blog could not generate traffic alone. It seems like some see these new social networks as the new Jesus that will bring the light of truth to them, while they're ignoring the lamps and bookshelves in front of them.
Posted by: Tony | September 06, 2007 at 11:54 AM
As tempting as it is to cut and paste my reply over Bill's VOX entry for this entry, I'll try to be a little less rambling and more concise.
I think http://mediatedcultures.net/ is a very, very good place to get an academic consideration of Web 2.0, online social networks, and other "mediated cultures".
But as good as I think their main YouTube video is in describing it (see http://youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g), it's still difficult to explain to the "common folk" that aren't well-read and well familiar with computer technology. I sent this video to my father, who didn't know what to make of it, and I'm not sure my explanation was much better.
I don't feel I can adequately comment about social networking, however, without commenting at large on how people use computer technology in general. The term "user friendly" doesn't seem to be used very often. A lot of people are using this technology when they really have no comprehensive idea on how to use it. Jay Leno joked once on the Tonight Show about a new keyboard that would have only the buttons that the masses really wanted: one for e-mail, one for solitaire, one for Googling your name, and one for porn.
Steve Jobs hasn't seemed to get it through his thick head what will get Macs to be widely used. He stepped down and away during the clone wars that made IBM-compatible synonymous with "PC" as in Personal Computer; Apple at that time was too busy crushing the Apple II clone produced by FranklinAce by suing the pants off them.
No doubt, Jobs created a runaway hit with the iPod (the jury is still out on the iPhone), but the new iMac is still hampered by Apple's unyielding stance on proprietary design. You can't get third-party hardware on it; if one thing goes, you have to replace the whole thing.
Speaking of social networking specifically, we have MySpace, which seems to stand as a prime example of web design gone wrong. Few of its users actually know how to code HTML; they are usually restricted to the set format, and use similarly crippled tools to do the coding for them. The result is usually a mess that must be scrolled not just up and down to view, but also side to side.
There's also the persistent problem of what I'd call parasites. I was chagrined to find that YouTube is now infected by spammers of the e-mail variety. I now have spam in my messages there, too, but no way to stop it.
The thing is, though, that some of these downsides seem to come with the territory. I think many of us remember how novel and revolutionary cable was when it first came out, such as MTV showing wall-to-wall videos before Viacom realized that relative tripe was needed to pay the bills. It seems the more established a telecommunications technology is, the more wasteland it seems to generate.
Posted by: jaklumen | September 06, 2007 at 02:05 PM
Tony: I share your pain. I get requests for blogs that are then followed by lengthy discussions about what blogs are. ("We want one, but first tell us what it is.)
jaklumen: To your point about "user friendly," I think UI design and usability is probably the most overlooked role of web development. I just finished writing copy for a UI design firm's website. I was the third copywriter they called in, and the first one to actually deliver copy that could be used. They're in a tough spot, because most people — even in the tech sector — don't get what UI design is and why it's important. Once a company uses them, they keep coming back. But articulating what they do and why it's important is a real challenge.
As for the iMac, I'm going to cut Jobs a little slack on that one. It's designed for people who want something out-of-the-box. If you go with a Mac Pro, well it may not be as modular as a Windows machine, but there's a lot you can add to it.
Posted by: Bill Snyder | September 06, 2007 at 11:14 PM
Here I feel like a layman for not having a TrackBack for your because I DON'T BLOG. ;)
Bill, this article was insightful. Not only did I not know that you had a blog filled with such insight, I had honestly ignored all of the Web 3.0 hype.
I have a few things to comment with.
First, I agree heavily with your "stuffing the internet in a box" analogy that you used to destroy Web 3.0; but at the same time, I feel like you ended up defining Web 3.0. Specifically here:
"I SMS to my blog and receive IMs on my phone. In short, we are creating a web that is truly worldwide, one that stretches beyond computers and beyond information."
That's exactly what "Web 3.0" is, and will be. If Web 2.0 (and maybe I'm not "well-read" enough to truly understand) is what we are experiencing on the internet now, surely Web 3.0 is the infant-steps of mobile web-browsing? If Web 2.0 brought your desktop online, surely we can gestimate that Web 3.0 will bring the internet/desktop into your hand.
To take a stab at Jaklumen, the verdict is still out on the iPhone? Really? The iPhone is the only real web-enabled phone. Sure, my BlackBerry can get my emails, check the weather, news, sports, and update my Facebook status, but when it comes to actually accessing the Internet, it's like dialing up Web 1.0 on a 56k modem all over again. Wikipedia, a simple as it's web UI is, is destroyed without a decent application to decode it's CSS.
The way I see it, what has and will truly define the Web is the technology that sits behind and in front of it. Th revolution of Web 2.0 as we know it was propagated by the acceptance of high-speed internet access. Imagine trying to use Google Maps with a 56k modem? Personal computers can now handle a webpage that opens with hundreds of images and javascript and flash-based animations and navigations. My 2004 computer sometimes struggles under Facebook. But to think that your iPhone (or my iPod Touch) can open those sites, almost flawlessly, while I'm ignoring my professors in lecture, is remarkable. And it will be services that utilize this concept, and shape their information appropriately, that will drive the next generation of the Web.
And to talk about Steve Jobs real fast, Bill I share your slack-cut on this one. I think that the iMac revolutionized the personal computer, and in turn the web (because we all know that now, the only reason to own a computer, is to access the web). Jaklumen, you talked about your father not knowing what to make of the Web 2.0 video? Well, try asking him to replace the motherboard. Or even something as simple as upgrading the RAM. And the truth of the matter is, to keep up with the burgeoning internet alone, computers need to be replaced, or at least significantly upgraded, very very regularly. I think that the only fault Apple has in the creation of their iMac, is the lack of a recycling program, although this might be changing along with their Aluminum and Glass enclosures.
Sorry I rambled. It's the caffeine.
Posted by: Micah Spieler | December 07, 2008 at 11:18 PM
To my mind, new version Microsoft OS is really great. I have in view one of versions of Windows 7 http://rapid4me.com/?q=Windows+7+Build+6956
Posted by: ninka | April 23, 2009 at 10:55 AM