Web 2.0Is there a There there?

A colleague…

“The bottom line…reality is that

nobody really cares about the terms

used to make technology happen,

the only people who do are the

writers…and you guys got sucked in

because you read a lot.”

Tim Bray

“I just wanted to say how much I’ve come to dislike this “Web 2.0” faux-meme. It’s not only vacuous marketing hype, it can’t possibly be right. In terms of qualitative changes of everyone’s experience of the Web, the first happened when Google hit its stride and suddenly search was useful for, and used by, everyone every day. The second—syndication and blogging turning the Web from a library into an event stream—is in the middle of happening. So a lot of us are already on 3.0. Anyhow, I think Usenet might have been the real 1.0. But most times, the whole thing still feels like a shaky early beta to me.”

Co-editor XML spec, founder Antartica sw, Director of Web Technologies at Sun

http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2005/08/04/Web-2.0

Jeffrey Zeldman

“It soon appeared that “Web 2.0” was not only bigger than the Apocalypse but also more profitable. Profitable, that is, for investors like the speaker. Yet the new gold rush must not be confused with the dot-com bubble of the 1990s: “Web 1.0 was not disruptive. You understand? Web 2.0 is totally disruptive. You know what XML is? You’ve heard about well-formedness? Okay. So anyway—” And on it ran, like a dentist’s drill in the Gulag.

A List Apart, HappyCog, Designing with Web Standards

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/web3point0

Joel Spolsky

“The term Web 2.0 particularly

bugs me. It’s not a real concept.

It has no meaning. It’s a big,

vague, nebulous cloud of pure

architectural nothingness.” Joel on Software, Fog Creek Software

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/Fog

So why am I here tonight talking to you about Web 2.0?

These are people I really respect.

They’re smarter than me.

It’s because of the 2000 Census.

Google’s shared APIs are to the GNU

vs. UNIX debate what the 2000

Census was to the English Only

movement

Etymology of “Web 2.0”

• The concept of "Web 2.0" began with a conference brainstorming session between O'Reilly and MediaLive International.

• “Dale Dougherty, web pioneer and O'Reilly VP, noted that far from having "crashed", the web was more important than ever, with exciting new applications and sites popping up with surprising regularity. What's more, the companies that had survived the collapse seemed to have some things in common. Could it be that the dot-com collapse marked some kind of turning point for the web, such that a call to action such as "Web 2.0" might make sense?”

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

Rebuttal

“Tim [Bray] is completely wrong about

the big picture. Memes are almost

always “marketing hype” –bumper

stickers is a better way to say it-but

they tend to catch on only if they

capture some bit of the zeitgeist.”http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2005/08/not_20.html

It doesn’t matter what you call it

• Open Source

• AJAX

• Collective intelligence/social

networking

• Mashups

Seven Characteristics (per Tim O’Reilly)

• Web as platform

• Harnessing collective intelligence

• Primacy of data (sources)

• Continuous maintenance/improvement

• Lightweight programming models

• SW above the level of single device

• Rich user experiences

“Web 1.0” “Web 2.0”

DoubleClick Google AdSense

Ofoto Flickr

Mp3 Napster

Britannica Online Wikipedia

Evite Upcoming.org, EVDB

Directories

(taxonomy)

Tagging

(folksonomy)

Personal websites Blogging

Stickiness Syndication

Web as Platform

• Netscape framed web as platform using old sw paradigmweb browser desktop app

• Browsers & web servers both became commodities

• Value moved up the chain to services delivered over the web platform

Harnessing Collective Intelligence

• Extending the open source

philosophy

• Users pursue “selfish” interests &

build collective value as an

automatic byproduct

• Dan Bricklin (VisiCalc): Cornucopia

of the Commons

Harnessing Collective Intelligence• Hyperlinking = foundation of webassociations

become stronger through repetition/intensity (Google’s breakthrough)

• eBay’s product=collective activity, competitive advantage-critical mass

• Wikipedia- “with enough eyeballs all bugs are shallow” Eric Raymond/Open source software

• Folksonomy• Peer production methods (Linux, Apache,

MySQL, Perl, PHP, Python)

Long Tail

• Chris Anderson Wired article (2004)

• Colloquial name for feature of statistical

distribution in which infrequent

occurences/low amplitude distribution

can cumulatively outnumber/outweigh

the initial such that in aggregate they

constitute the majority

RSS-Really Simple Syndication

• Remember “push”?

• It turns out that people wanted “pull.”

http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~wdutton/comm533/pushtech.html

Primacy of Data

• Database management as core

competency

• Control of datasource−NavTeq/TeleAtlas/DigitalGlobe root of

mapping; Mapquest pioneered in 1995competing apps by licensing same data

−Amazon & ISBN

Classes of core data

• Location

• Identity

• Calendaring of public events

• Product identifiers

• namespaces

Release Cycle Obsolete

• Service ceases to perform unless

maintained on a daily basis

• Release early/release often

• Real time monitoring of user

behavior

Lightweight programming models

• AJAX, RSS, HTML−Barriers to re-use low−HTML’s “view source”

• Lightweight business models—innovation

in assembly−Dell assembly of commodity hardware

• AdSense as “snap in equivalent of a

business model”

AJAX : asynchronous javascript + HTML

• Pages that interact with the server

without refreshingfeels flash-like

• Web standards−CSS: layout−XML: data−XHTML: markup−JavaScript/DOM: behavior

AJAX

• Standards based presentation using XHTML and CSS

• Dynamic display and interaction using Document Object Model

• Data interchange and manipulation using XML

• Asynchronous data retrieval using XHTML HttpRequest

• JavaScript binding everything together

Focus moves from the single device

• iTunes−Application seamlessly reaches from

handheld device to massive web backend with PC as local cache/control station

Rich User Experiences

• Word processor: wiki-style

collaborative editing + rich

formatting

• Project management via Basecamp,

Ta-da

Social Networking

• Power of weak

ties

• MySpace: more

views than

Google

Free tagging, Folksonomy, Intersection of personal & public

Folksonomy: flickr

Folksonomy: del.icio.us

Folksonomy: del.icio.us

Authority in numbers

FIRST

Timeliness

popularity

Solo/group

relationships

Social Networking Meets Folksonomy

Social Networking Meets Folksonomy

Mashups

• Web app hybrids

• Seamlessly combined content from

more than one source

• Typically sourced from a 3rd party

via an API−Application programming interface

What does it mean for us?

• UX Designers: wireframing virtually

impossible

• End of paper prototyping?

• More technical expertise required?

What *else* does it mean for us?

• You tell me.

Thank you!

Samantha Bailey

Director, Usability -- Thomson West

http://westlaw.com

samantha@baileysorts.com

http://baileysorts.com

References• Slide 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0

• Slide 3, 13, 16, 17: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

• Slide 4, 30: http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000385.php

• Slide 6: http://www.ok-cancel.com/comic/123.html

• Slide 7: http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2005/08/04/Web-2.0

• Slide 8: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/web3point0

• Slide 9: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/Fog

• Slide 12: http://www.gnu.org/

• Slide 14: http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2005/08/not_20.html

• Slide 31: http://writely.com

• Slide 32: http://37signals.com

• Slide 33: http://google.com

• Slide 34: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jul2005/tc20050719_5427_tc119.htm

• Slide 35: http://flickr.com/

• Slide 36: http://del.icio.ous

• Slide 39: http://www.43things.com/

• Slide 41: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashup_(web_application_hybrid)

• Slide 42: http://www.chicagocrime.org

• Slide 44: http://randomchaos.com/games/fastr

• Slide 45: http://newzingo.com

• Slide 46: http://garbagescout.com