Take words like blogs, wikis, folksonomies, RSS feeds, client-side, web-based, server-side, social network, SaaS, rich Internet, podcasting, P2P, MySpace, open source, mashup, YouTube and a boatload of other recently-invented acronyms and buzzwords, stir them together in a big pot called the Internet and you get what amounts to a religious philosophy called Web 2.0. Ready or not, here it comes.
Started as a catch phrase pitched by Internet guru Tim O’Reilly, Web 2.0 has turned into a raison d’etre for many Internet professionals and amateurs alike. The “old” Internet’s World Wide Web (which is where we get the “www” in website addresses) is called “Web 1.0.” Web 1.0 is held in disdain as being a “closed” system, an exclusionary, static data repository in which “client-side interaction” (i.e., you changing what you see) is not allowed. Web 2.0 is said to represent the ushering in of a new age, the “second generation Internet” full of “social networking opportunities” based upon an “architecture of participation” designed around a “culture and economics of openness.”
To put these heady concepts into perspective, take, as an example, my website: it contains a brief description of myself, services that I offer, links to worthwhile websites and copies of the articles that I write. It is, thank you very much, an exclusionary, static data repository. If I wanted to take the “open, socially responsible,” Web 2.0 approach, then my website would also include a “blog” (Web log), which would be a constantly-updated, stream-of-consciousness diatribe full of my thoughts and opinions, sort of like an online journal or diary. I would spend time every day writing in my blog, and, in order to contribute to “blogspace democracy” and “the openness of the blogosphere,” my website would allow anyone that came along to comment on my writings. My website would also include a “wiki” section, which would allow visitors to easily add, remove, and otherwise edit and change the content of my website.
My Web 2.0 website would also incorporate an “RSS feed” (Really Simple Syndication), sort of like a subscription service that would notify subscribers when my website, blog or wiki had changed. When so notified, they could hurry over, have a look and change things, if they felt the need. My website would also allow “folksonomy,” enabling any visitor to write “collaboratively generated, open-ended” labels that would categorize and index the content of my website, thereby controlling the way that it would be found by and appear in search engines such as Google.
In the ideal Web 2.0 world, I wouldn’t be writing for, nor would you be viewing my website using a computer or software that either of us actually owned. In fact, we wouldn’t be using home computers at all. Instead, all that would reside in our homes would be a monitor (preferably, our TV), and some sort of input device, such as a keyboard or mouse. In the early days of computing, this type of setup was known as a “dumb terminal.” We would simply subscribe to and pay for “software as a service” (SaaS), and rent or lease our programs and data storage space from a government or corporate entity, such as the Department of Commerce, or Microsoft.
And now, the really strange part: I didn’t make up any of the words or phrases that are quoted in the “mashup” above.