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Five Reasons Why Web 2.0 Matters
jg21 writes "Dion Hinchcliffe, who is becoming the closest thing outside of Tim O'Reilly to being a Web.2.0 popularizer and evangelist, has summarized what he considers to be the five major benefits of Web 2.0 best practices. Hinchcliffe singles out the tactical potential of aligning with Web 2.0's increasingly ballistic trajectory: 'You can use the leviathan forces of attention and enthusiasm that are swirling around Web 2.0 these days as a powerful enabler to make something important and exciting happen in your organization.'"
Because it's still just hype. Why was this even posted?
That's how I sumamrize this article. There's not a single nugget of real information in this article. It's a lot of marketing, blogging bullshit, which quite honestly, doesn't mean anything. "synergy" and "critical mass" and "collective intelligence" are just buzzwords with as much meaning as "Web 2.0".
Why exactly did that handwaving sprinkled with buzzwords make the front page?
Feng Shui on a ballistic trajectory, my ass...
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Web 2.0 fundamentally revolves around us and seeks to ensure that we engage ourselves, participate and collaborate together, and mutually trust and enrich each other, even though we could be separated by the entire world geographically. And Web 2.0 gives us very specific techniques to do this and attempts to address the "people problem" directly.
Sweet! It gets rid of trolls, uneducated users, and the typical "Dumbass Element" that prevails on the Internet?
No? Oh, then Web 2.0 sucks just as much as "Web 1.0".
FTFA:
It's when software developers naively use technology to try to solve our problems instead of addressing the underlying issues that people are actually facing.
This is nothing more than marketing hype. First step in marketing hype is to identify with your audience so they feel you're one of them.
Why does this matter? It has to do with critical mass and synergy, two vital value creation forces.
Yeah, my thoughts exactly.
This is the Internet. You can say "fuck" here. - AC
"You can use the leviathan forces of attention and enthusiasm that are swirling around Web 2.0 these days as a powerful enabler to make something important and exciting happen in your organization."
In other words, hype building on hype. Just what the world needs...
The real 5 reasons why Web 2.0 matters:
1. VCs can make a ton of money
2. People with MBAs who know nothing about technology can make a ton of money
3. VCs can make a ton of money
4. People with MBAs who know nothing about technology can make a ton of money
5. VCs can make a ton of money
The average Joe will get stuck holding stock in companies with AJAX-enabled web sites for pet food sales. Joe's rationale will be the result of all of the hype he read about Web 2.0.
~
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Just don't abuse it. There's nothing I hate more than people implementing stuff like AJAX where it isn't even needed. I run an auction site. This interactive stuff isn't necessary for such a site or service. Yet, of course, there are plenty of people who will think web2.0/AJAX type stuff is absolutely necessary for everything under the sun.
I doubt I'll ever use it, because I just don't have the kind of time to dedicate to learning everything involved to do it (especially since that isn't what I do for a living and I wouldn't use it in my own site).
Frankly, I kind of prefer a more static web anyway. I don't want everythign to behave like a locally installed application. Loading another page or refreshing won't kill me.
If "Teh" Web 2.0 is anything like what that guy was saying, it must be all design and process documents; pages upon pages of content free words. I swear to gord I read that 3 times and I have no idea what he said. Aside from Feng Shui. And then how he said he doesn't believe in mystical BS. Which is Ironic, because all he's talking is mystical BS.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
OK, I'm not a theoretical physicist, more of the practical variety (I shoot things). Assuming we're talking about things happening down here on the planet, the term "ballistic" is generally meant to suggest "propelled with an impulse, and not guided" (like a kicked football, or a bullet). The trajectory of such items usually involves:
1) Slowing down
2) Dropping (literally) like a rock
That is not the mental image I'd like to paint of some exciting new IT initiative. Honestly. Might as well say, "We've got to get in on this now! Why, this technology's going postal!"
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Rant coming, I got karma to loose :P
:P
:P
All I want to say is, those people who are trying to market things, technologies, products, etc. which already exist in some form are always tagging new names on their stuff and try to sell it as something overly superior. I don't like these kinda guys
To put things straight, I am all and full on the part of the technologies that are converging the web and the web development process towards what buzzworders call web2.0 for a time now. But, just like with AJAX, I just feel the urge to throw things in different directions when I see new names tagged on existing technolgies and say everything else is just stupid and also those are stupid who don't ajax (yes, that's a verb) from now on.
That said, IMHO there are plenty of benefits of the emerging web2.0. But, if someone wanted to sell (as in persuading to use) me a programming/engineering/etc. model with the line "Has Excellent Feng Shui" I would just stand up, throw my tie in the garbage can and go out for a beer
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
The same type of audience who like all the buzzwords he uses.
"# The Focus of Technology Moves To People With Web 2.0."
And the technology's been WHERE before? Focused on aliens?
"# Web 2.0 Represents Best Practices."
Yea, that's because it's not the standard. Wait until everyone starts using it, and then it gets raped by developers. If people don't start using it, why do we care?
"# Web 2.0 Has Excellent Feng Shui."
"...critical mass and synergy, two vital value creation forces. Taken individually, Web 2.0 techniques like harnessing collective intelligence, radical decentralization, The Long Tail..."
What? Feng Shui? Synergy? In SOFTWARE? You lost me there...
# Quality Is Maximized, Waste Is Minimized. The software world is going through one of its cyclical crises as development jobs go overseas and older, more bloated ways of building software finish imploding as the latest software techniques become more agile and lightweight (sometimes called lean). The guys over at 37Signals say it best... Using Web 2.0 you can build better software with less people, less money, less abstractions, less effort, and with this increase in constraints you get cleaner, more satisfying software as the result. And simpler software is invariably higher quality.
Ok, aside from the obvious grammar nazi alert (FEWER people, FEWER abstractions), "Using Web 2.0 you can build better software with less people, less money, less abstractions, less effort, and with this increase in constraints you get cleaner, more satisfying software as the result." Ok, so we've got fewer people working on it ANYWAY. Great. We're still outsourcing, just outsourcing fewer jobs. Of course, that doesn't matter, because if we're really reducing the total number of people, there are fewer jobs at home too. I don't see how this combats outsourcing.
# Web 2.0 Has A Ballistic Trajectory. Never count out the momentum of a rapidly emerging idea. For example, I'm a huge fan of Eric Evans' Domain Driven Design but it's so obscure that it will probably never get off the ground in a big way. There's no buzz, excitement, or even a general marketplace for it. This is Web 2.0's time in the sun, deserved or not. You can use the leviathan forces of attention and enthusiasm that are swirling around Web 2.0 these days as a powerful enabler to make something important and exciting happen in your organization. Use this opportunity to seize the initiative, ride the wave, and build great software that matters.
Err... I may be living under a rock, but I really haven't heard a lot of hype about Web 2.0. TFA makes it seem like it's the household buzzword.
Don't get me wrong, I hope good technologies succeed. I just think that TFA is overhyping the abilities of Web 2.0, and he should look at the benefits in terms of actual users - 2/5ths of that article is comprised of discussion of Web 2.0's Feng Shui and Ballistic Trajectory. As a user, I don't see how these things improve my experience.
As a fairly uninformed reader with regards to this topic, I really wish TFA would focus more on concrete examples of what Web 2.0 can do.
http://www.TheGamerNation.com/Forums
This sounds more like a pump-job for venture capital financing than a distinguished advocacy of a new paradigm. The thing about Web2.0 is that you don't need people to "buy into" Web2.0. If it's so damn great, your Web2.0 application will sell itself. See LiveJournal, Blogger, Flikr, MySpace and others for examples.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
So... just to clarify... "Web 2.0" is a new-ish buzzword, referring to an arbitrary stage in the natural evolution of web technology? And... you can tell which version of the web your page belongs to, primarily by measuring its level of dynamicness?*
*I don't know if it's a word, but if not... give it time.
It has to do with critical mass and synergy, two vital value creation forces. Taken individually, Web 2.0 techniques like harnessing collective intelligence, radical decentralization, The Long Tail are quite powerful ... You need a core set of Web 2.0 techniques in order to be successful and then the value curve goes geometric. This is why the ROI of software built this way is so much greater. ...
Using Web 2.0 you can build better software with less people, less money, less abstractions, less effort, and with this increase in constraints you get cleaner, more satisfying software as the result. And simpler software is invariably higher quality.
Yeah, right.
What really matters, if you're selling stuff on the web, is that people can 1) find what they want, 2) order it without much hassle, and 3) get what they ordered without delays or screwups. It's 2) and 3) that matter, because they determine repeat business. Serious retailers talk about the "abandoned shopping cart" ratio, or how many people started the process of buying something but never finished the transaction. One screwup in the fulfilment process usually loses the customer. Most profit is on repeat customers, remember.
The "Web 2.0" stuff is mostly about the front end, the advertising/marketing part of the operation. That only matters in attracting first-time customers.
In the end, all the "Web 2.0" stuff gives you roughly the capabilities Flash has now. If that was so great, we'd see more all-Flash sites.
Where do these people come from?
Web 2.0 - A term for the technically illiterate denoting the passage of time
Best Practices - A term describing what the technically inept do to avoid getting fired
Web 2.0 Best Practices - What the technically illitate ask the technically inept do to, giving rise to the world's worst, bug-ridden software.
- The Kessel run is for nerf herders. I can circumnavigate the entire Central Finite Curve in a lot less than 12 parse
"increasingly ballistic trajectory"
So the thing in question is running out of propulsive power, becoming more like an inert object thrown in the air, soon to reach it's apogee and begin its inevitable, uncontrolled downard acceleration, attaining its maximum velocity just as it impacts with the ground. Is that supposed to be good? Do I want to be part of that?