The State of Web 2.0, The Future of Web Software

SphereOfInfluence writes "Despite some disdain for the term Web 2.0, the underlying ideas seem to be genuinely taking off from the seed of successful techniques of the first generation of the Web. Here's an in-depth review of the future of Web 2.0 and online software from Web 2.0 proponent, Dion Hinchcliffe. Like or hate the term, the actual ideas in Web 2.0 are turning out to not only usable but a growing cadre of companies are actively being successful with them. This includes the Ajax phenomenon being actively pursued by Microsoft and Google, widespread social software, and massive online communities like MySpace. These trends are all leading to predictions on the ultimate fallout of these changes, something increasingly called social computing. "

Comments

Why is it called web "2.0"

[ylikone]

It's just CSS mixed with javascript... is it not?

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[kfg]

Worse than that. It's a "meme."

KFG

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[MindStalker]

The idea isn't just ajax. Its more of an idea of dynamic interactive application like websites, using whatever methods, currently ajax is popular.

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[slavemowgli]

Pretty much, yes - Javascript, CSS and XML. The funny thing about this is that this is pretty close to what Tim (Berners-Lee, that is) had in mind right from the beginning - that users would actually be able to collaborate on things using the web rather than just getting a bunch of static [1] pages thrown at them.

1. "static" in the sense of not dynamically interacting with the user in an ongoing communication with the server, that is, not in the sense of "not dynamically generated by the server". Note that a page using "regular" Javascript is still a static page; there might be user interaction, but it's not usually going to communicate with the server, so all interaction is local only (akin to writing into a book you bought, for example).

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[MrRogers2]

Not really. Mostly it uses a javascript object to make calls to the server without refreshing the page. Imagine validating entered part numbers in a table on the exiting event of the field. You can them make the field backgrounds turn red on the invalid part numbers (without the full round trip for the whold document).

There's lots and lots of hype, but underneath there's some really powerful tools.

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[Bogtha]

No. It's a pretty vague concept, but basically it's an overall design strategy / feature set rather than a particular implementation detail. Read the article, it explains it in more detail.

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[ergo98]

Read the article, it explains it in more detail.

The article is just another guy giving his differing opinion on what "Web 2.0" is. You can find those in the thousands, and there is nothing about this one that makes it more compelling (in fact, and all apologies to Mr. Hinchcliffe, but his take seems even more vacuous and ignorant than most).

To quote from the article: "Web 2.0 is not a technology, it's a way of architecting software and businesses and companies see the value in the Web 2.0 way of doing business.". What an awesomely vague and useless statement that is. Basically what he's saying is "We'll pick whatever is successful and call it Web 2.0". The mention of MySpace is telling, given that MySpace is nothing more than a continuation of the sorts of social sites that appeared when HTML first hit the mainstream.

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[Bogtha]

You've confused "Web 2.0" and "Ajax". Not hard to do, both are annoying buzzwords, but they are different in meaning.

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[MightyMartian]

It's rather ironic that we're trying to get browsers to do what other application platforms have been able to do since the late 1970s. I sometimes wonder if the web browser, like the gopher client before it, should be dropped for something, well, a little less kludgy and arcane.

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[MindStalker]

Not nessesarily though I definatly think a new protocol instead of http needs to be looked at. But there is no reason to use another client (besides the obvious need to upgrade said client to support this new protocol). There would be a push to use something similar to x-window protocol, but this is major overkill and would be much harder to secure (serverwise) than what we have now. I guess the crux is, do you want a general computing network application protocol (aka x-win) or individual website that are designed for very specific functionality. I think the second is really preferable.

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[kill-1]

Yeah, it should be called Web 1.5.

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[aCapitalist]

Once they start talking about "social computing" I'm ready to hurl.

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[TrappedByMyself]

It's just CSS mixed with javascript... is it not?

Yeah, basically the same stuff which has been around since like the 90s.
As more capabile backends and languages (The Java stuff, PHP, .NET, etc...) have popped up, and the feature demand has risen, the real developers of the world have grown less tolerant of the suck-ass presentation environment the HTML jockeys have been swimming around in. They have started to organize things and build the frameworks and ideas.
But, yeah, it's still the same ole stuff

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[MightyMartian]

The general direction that folks want the web to take is very much a distributed computing model. There's nothing wrong with that, and there's nothing wrong with morphing the browser into an application platform. What I have a problem with is stuff like Ajax, which is neither all that revolutionary or all that easy to deal with.

It looks to my poor old brain more like yet another crusty hack to get current browser technology to do more than it really is all that capable of. And because browsers, unlike X servers, don't really have the kind of standardization necessary for this to work well, you end up having to have hacks to hacks just to get IE or Mozilla or whatever to work. This is definitely nothing new, but rather just the same old crap that anyone trying to do anything even a little complex with Javascript has had to put up with for years.

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[helix_r]

I don't think it really is about any particular technology-- nor should it be.

Web 2.0, as far as I can tell, is a nexus of collaboration-focused and location-less activities. The concept of storing your personal data (for example, email, photos and documents) "in the sky" rather than on some particular computer that you own and the concept of sharing your data as though it were a document that everyone could edit has been theorized since the early days of "hyper-text".

Only now is it becoming a reality. Why? Because enough people are now on the net and the technology is cheap and accessible. In the 80's and most of the 90's we did not have that.

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[ceejayoz]

In the same sense that humans are just water contained by some chemicals, sure.

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[Pope]

Wait, don't you mean hURL?

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[moochfish]

It's just CSS mixed with javascript... is it not?

And five million in VC funds!!11!11eleventeen!!

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[MrRogers2]

Indeed, thanks.

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[misleb]

1. "static" in the sense of not dynamically interacting with the user in an ongoing communication with the server, that is, not in the sense of "not dynamically generated by the server". Note that a page using "regular" Javascript is still a static page; there might be user interaction, but it's not usually going to communicate with the server, so all interaction is local only (akin to writing into a book you bought, for example).

The fact that a site might use Javascript and XML at all seems pretty irrelevent to me. It could, concievably, all be done with simple HTML forms and submits without CSS or much Javascript and still be "web 2.0." The "2.0" thing isn't about new technology or a new way (as in the language) of writing web sites, it is just a new way of looking at web sites and their function.

-matthew

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[the chao goes mu]

The use of the word "architeching" made my brain hurt. "Building"? Doesn't that word still exist? Why make up a new one? Or, if you mean designing, why not use, oh, I don't know... "designing"? I hate people who create new verbs for exisiting concepts. Especially if they create especially ugly ones.

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[pedalman]

You should probably ask the people who named their product "Preparation H". BTW, ever wonder what happened to those who tested Preparations A-G?

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[Robody]

There are a lot of cool next gen web 2.0 websites. As technies we shouldnt bash them.. well not too much Here are my favorites: Entertainment Better than ebaumsworld and Fark http://www.phoonso.com/ Tech News http://www.digg.com/ Torrents With news http://www.torrentspy.com/ Parenting http://www.fircle.com/ Gadgetry Be a Ninja. http://www.ninjaremote.com/

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[Ingolfke]

Yeah, and HTML is just an text file.

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[heinousjay]

The problem is, building and designing already have different meanings in software, and it's not useful to make confusing statements. Sure, 'architecting' is an ugly word, but your suggested replacements don't cover the activity of creating an architecture the same way.

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[Ingolfke]

Yeah, and the original boom of the web was just some server side scripting languages and a formatted text file. Big deal?

You're using a reductionist argument the focuses on the technologies that are used to drive a new breed of web sites, lamely called "Web 2.0" sites. But "Web 2.0" isn't just about technology... it's about the general acceptance of those technologies and the results produced by using those technologies to increase collaboration and knowledge acquisition and sharing. Technology, despite what many geeks think, isn't that vaulabe in and of itself... it's value is derived through application.

Anyways, quit being such a bunch of narrow-minded argumentative idiots and just accept the term and focus on qualifying what it means and dispelling myths about what technology can and can't do. By clarifying the terms and engaging in the debate a bit, you might actually make a difference instead of standing on the sidelines hurling lame insults and rehashing pointless truths (that CSS is used... eee gads!) over and over again.

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[jekewa]

That has nothing to do with the "preparation," but everything to do with the "H"...

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[the chao goes mu]

I don't see how "designing architecture X" is really any less clear than "architecting architecture X" is. "Design" is not a term of art with a clear and contradictory meaning. And don't tell me it is a software thing, after a decade plus of development work, "design" is used as loosely in software development as anywhere else.

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[MindStalker]

X as I said is more for general computing. Possibly a minimalist version of it thats intended to run inside the browser window, as the current technology is way too bandwidth heavy. I guess a little "less" interactivity would help, 1. Let the client( do some of the lifting for simple scripted interactions.
2. Don't feed every mouse movement to the server unless it is specifically requested.
3. Don't call the client the server and the server the client, its confusing!
(yes it made sence in the old unix model where you are already connected via SSH and you were then running a connection BACK to your desktop, obviously if this protocol is adapted for the web the terminology will definatly need to be changed)

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[fbjon]

Perhaps the best description of what Web 2.0 is the name Web 2.0 itself. Look at how it goes around, from site to site, blog to blog, gathering new meanings and connotations as it is filtered through hundreds of meaningless tech-blogs. This is perhaps why so few people understand it:

Q: So what's this Web 2.0 thing, anyway?
A: What do you mean, "what is it"? It's Web 2.0, that's all it is! Don't you get it? It's brilliant!"

Kind of like those interesting circular linkages. Link 2.0.

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[iamlucky13]

It is just about user initiated content and collaboration.

In that respect, has anything really changed in the last 10 years or so...or even going back to BBS? Collaboration and user-contributed content is not really new, but it is becoming more prevalent and refined, arguably due to the newer methods like wiki's. Additionally, for those who like to link application approaches like AJAX to the term Web 2.0, they ultimately don't change much more than the fluidity of the experience. I don't think we can escape the fact that the term "web 2.0" is nothing more than a way of marketing sites with unique features.

My biggest problem with the term is that it is entirely arbitrary. There was no formal revision to anything that led to the application of the term. While Mozilla can refer to adding a couple features and fixing bugs when labeling a release 1.5, and the W3C can point to new and deprecated elements in HTML 4, web 2.0 is just whatever people say it is. In fact, it seems most of the sites that people call a part of web 2.0 don't even meet "web 1.0" standards. Some of them come reasonably close to validating, but usually with a transitional DTD. HTML 4.0 Loose exists primarily as a bridge for sites that want to implement an update from HTML 3 to 4, not as a way to stick the HTML 4 label on sites that are intentionally written according to the HTML 3 specification.

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[the chao goes mu]

Yes, this is all about my preferences. Not about people inventing needless words and focing language to be even more ugly than necessary. "Architecting" is not a word, and it serves no purpose that is not better served by an existing word. I don't know why you are getting so worked up about this. I simply pointed out that in coining a new word one should avoid words that are unnecessary and especially ones that are ugly. Why is that such an objectionable position?

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[NovaX]

1st generation Internet: ARPANET was formed in 1969. The focus was on connecting ARPA-funded computing resources at various research centers to maximize usage of expensive and highly specialized facilities.

2nd generation Internet: In 1972, electronic email was invented. Now people could communicate electronically even though they were using different computers.

3rd generation Internet ("Web 1.0"): In 1991, CERN released the code required to build WWW servers and browsers.

4th generation Internet ("Web 2.0"): XML was adopted by the W3C in 1997. The focus returns to helping applications communicate directly with each other.

The real goal of Web 2.0 is to foster communication between diverse applications through web services. Network applications went from a client-server model, to a distributed ORB model, and now to a loosely coupled services grid architecture. The popularity of AJAX and social networks is related, as it returns back from the 1.0 phase of focusing on functionality to focusing on comminication, usability, and integration.

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[Eli Gottlieb]

You mean like NeWS?

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[jsebrech]

3. Don't call the client the server and the server the client, its confusing!
(yes it made sence in the old unix model where you are already connected via SSH and you were then running a connection BACK to your desktop, obviously if this protocol is adapted for the web the terminology will definatly need to be changed)

There was no ssh in the old unix model. Unix predates ssh by a few decades.

Look, the naming distinction between server and client is very simple: a server listens on the network for clients to connect to it. A server provides access to hardware that the client doesn't have. An ftp server provides access to the hard drive. An X server provides access to the graphics card. There's nothing confusing about it, it works the same like any other client/server design.

I used to have a set up with a single central X graphics server and three different application servers. The application servers ran X client applications which connected to the central graphics server for their output. Makes perfect sense.

Ofcourse, the web is different. The part that listens on the network there is on the remote machine, not on the local machine.

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[Ingolfke]

"Web 2.0" is a useful simplifying concept, defined by the fact that several sites have begun to share a common set of technologies, behaviors, and user experiences and have been very successful in that.

Am I saying everybody should use the term "Web 2.0"... yeah, probably... because there isn't anything better right now. And the concept that it represents actually has value and meaning. I admit it's a shitty sounding term, but at the same time it does make sense to general people and therefore can simplify communication and help distinguish sites using a set of new technologies to create dynamic and/or collaborative user experiences from your typical database driven full-update websites.

I think most /. geeks are reacting negatively to the term "Web 2.0" for whatever reason, but is anyone actually disputing that the concept behind Web 2.0 is gaining broad acceptance and is actually proving to be very successful?

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[smittyoneeach]

What's not to understand?
It's everything you ever did to move information from point A to B, elevated to Unicode and packaged as XML.
You need to have a good feel for the functional style of programming for it all to make sense.
Of course, to run WS-WTF, we're going to need some Big, Big Iron.
What we really need to do with the blogosphere in the nearterm is start incrementing the float number after "Web".
For example, we could craft a series of cross-linking posts about Web 2.1, Web 3.0, Web 3.1, Web 3.2, Web 3.2.1, Web 4.0, etc.
Bonus points if the numbering gets as unintelligible as that of Java language.

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[a.d.trick]

This kind of comment is about as usefull as C programers complaining that scripted languages like python and such were only mimicing compiled languages and doing it badly (because they were slow). Hypertext, Semantics, and Rest — the ideas the web is built around — are really, really cool. So why does the web seem so clunky? Here's some explainations.

• The world is full of bad programmers and designers. The web is probably even worse because it has suffered the fate of way too much hype.
• Web browers are pretty bad. There are a few really nice ones. But most of the popular ones all have issues. Firefox is probably my favorite, but it still has way too much bagage laying around from Netscape. I think web browsers have a lot of room for improvment, which is good news. Also browser developers tend to do retarded and inane things to try and stomp out competition. Think <blink>, ActiveX, the list goes on.
• HTML necromancy. HTML is old, and it's starting to stink, yet people still cling to it. XHTML is 6 years old already, and it is quite mature. This delay is caused mostly by Internet Explorer and lazy developers.
• Standards support. Again this follows with the browsers suck part. The standards drawn up by the W3C are awesome. I love DOM, CSS, and SVG. The problem is that the implementations are so bad that they're a real pain to use in real life.

I believe the web as a platform has amazing potential, if gready people would stop hijacking it. Comparing it to regular applications on a computer is comparing apples and oranges. One of the greatest things about REST is of it's client neutraity. In short, if you have a properly done web application. You should be able to have a web interface to it, or create a traditional GTK app in C that interfaces with it, or whatever you want, that way you can get the best of both worlds.

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[MightyMartian]

Going to the standards as saying "See, the web could be cool" is pretty meaningless, considering that no one seems to want to make the effort to move to the standards. It's not just IE, but I blame Microsoft in particular because they have a vested interested in not fully implementing standards.

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[MindStalker]

Sorry I didn't mean to say it was wrong, just that if it was adapted for the web it would have to be switched.

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[zobier]

It's rather ironic that we're trying to get browsers to do what other application platforms have been able to do since the late 1970s. I sometimes wonder if the web browser, like the gopher client before it, should be dropped for something, well, a little less kludgy and arcane.

It's called Firefox

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[grumpy_otter]

Hi KFG--please pardon me for butting in with an irrelevant post. I am a history teacher, and am looking for film or photo of Khrushchev's incident with the shoe. In an archived post (could not reply to it), you stated something like "careful scrutiny of the film will show..." which implied that you had seen footage of this event. I have not been able to find it anywhere. Can you tell me where you saw it? Thanks! Plaese send answer to annhubbard@hotmail.com I'd really appreciate it!

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[mini me]

Web 2.0, in my opinion, is the machine web (i.e. web services). Where web 1.0 was designed for human consumption, web 2.0 allows the computers to have the same abilities we have with HTML services. All of the web 2.0 companies are web 2.0 companies because they provide an API, not because they use AJAX and large fonts.

But nobody agrees with me, and the name is pretty silly anyway, so feel free to encompass all the social/AJAX/web services/betas/large fonts/gradients/ruby on rails/etc. terms under the web 2.0 umbrella.

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[Yer Mom]

Q: So what's this Web 2.0 thing, anyway?

Porn 2.0. HTH.

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[jc42]

Ofcourse, the web is different. The part that listens on the network there is on the remote machine, not on the local machine.

This is probably yet another case where we're faced with a running battle against non-techies who don't understand the terminology and seem intent on corrupting it. And it's not just the confusion of thinking that a server is remote while a client is local; lots of people think that a "server" is a piece of hardware. I've even seen this in computer-industry managers, and I've had to try to correct them as gently as I can. But I don't use their mis-definitions; I teach them the meaning of the technica terms.

But there's no reason for us to acquiesce in any revision of the definition. We should just do as scientists and engineers have been doing for centuries: There's a technically-correct definition. If you don't understand it or misuse it, you simply discredit yourself in any tech setting. We should make it clear to novices that the position relative to a human is not part of the definition, and if you insist that it is, you will merely exclude yourself from serious discussion.

For another common example, consider that physicists have never gone along with the popular reversal of the term "quantum" to mean something very big, as in the media's "quantum leap". To maintain credibility in physicist circles, you have to understand and use their definition (and you'll probably say "quantum jump" ;-).

There are zillions of other examples. Possibly the funniest is the way that computer geeks continue to use "hacker" as a term of honor, despite the media's attempts to twist it into a criminal term.

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[jc42]

Porn 2.0. HTH.

Yeah; that helps a lot. That, combined with the "social computing" meme and all the talk of collaboration, tells us how it'll work:

You take your photos of yourself and various friends, and put them online with Web 2.0 tools. I and a million others do the same. Then those photos are picked up by the collaboration tools, that combine you and me (and a few others and their pets) in interesting pornographic poses.

That's just the simple case, of course. The more advanced Web 2. sites will pick up the videos that we've put online, and combine them, making all of us porn stars.

Re:Why is it called web "2.0"

[spectre_240sx]

Same old stuff as far as technology goes maybe, but the intent behind it is completely new. People are figuring out new ways to use the web. That's what Web 2.0 is all about. Hell, some web sites are even coming out with their own API's now. Where would you have seen that before now?

Yeah but, what about the porn?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what really drives the web technology!

Re:Yeah but, what about the porn?

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Don't worry, I'm on it.

Facial expression applet (safe for work) [works in FF1.5 and Opera 9]

Just a little thing I'm working on, so that we can tag facial expressions too. Look for the girl that's smiling, or the one that's winking/frowning/pouting, whatever.

Also working on other SVG applets that are even more impressive. Posable 3d mannequins that let you enter in the exact position of the girl in question, so that's searchable too.

Anyone want a beta account?

Re:Yeah but, what about the porn?

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

April Fool's is over. And if you followed my homepage link, you'd see I've been working on the idea on and off for months. Just in case anyone thinks I'm less than serious.

Re:Yeah but, what about the porn?

[PaprKut]

Although kinda cool (in the technical sense).
      If all it takes is some buck-toothed SVG girl closing her eyes to get you off, there are much better options out there, like the local Greyhound stop

Re:Yeah but, what about the porn?

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

You obviously didn't check much into it. That's just a really alpha-ish applet to let people tag images. I would have thought that obvious.

Summary of the article summary

[MustardMan]

I know you guys don't like buzzwords... so here are a bunch of buzzwords.

Re:Summary of the article summary

[the chao goes mu]

Thank you for architecting an extreme scalable phased-rollout of that object-oriented, three-tier, web-enabled iPost. (or is it e-post?)

More like Web 1.0.2.14

[PFI_Optix]

This "web 2.0" isn't some massive leap in technology. Nothing really revolutionary has been done to warrant the coining of the term or the implication that it's something new and improved. In the 10 years I've been on the internet, I've watched the slow evolution from barely-useful tool to amazing source of information to social phenomenon. Much of what is being heralded as new and amazing existed in very basic form early on; techniques are simply steadily improving.

Re:More like Web 1.0.2.14

[jbolden]

I disagree (16 years on the internet).
You had different tools:
a) usenet: good discussion but no continuity and no usability for non regular users
b) gopher: lots of good information but difficult to find what you are looking for. Directories helped but were hard to maintain

web 1.0:
c) HTML: fixed the graphics problem
d) Search engines: made it possible to find resources
e) commerce: long tail economics

web 2.0
f) Wikipedia: collaborative information creation
g) My Space: I don't know. I think collaborative sexuality but I'm out of the loop on this one
h) reviews (CNET, Amazon....) : tons of product information as part of the shopping experience
i) price / product comparison: best deal for the knowledgeable buyer

I think that stuff is new. Web 1.0 was still information delivery you "surfed" now you participate (like usenet) but at the same time outsiders can find what they want (like HTML / search engine)

Re:More like Web 1.0.2.14

[PFI_Optix]

So what you're saying is that "2.0" is an alpha version of a more integrated web?

Wiki/forums/reviews just remove the need for search engines and usenet to find certain kinds of information.

Myspace just removes the need for an HTML editor to run your own crappy website.

In all reality, there aren't any new services being offered in all this, just new tools that make those services somewhat more accessible and centralized. Amazon offers book reviews on their site instead of you having to look elswhere for a review. I don't really see where that's a new "version" of the web.

Re:More like Web 1.0.2.14

[SparafucileMan]

correct, except for XMLHTTPRequest, which only came around, what, 4 years ago or so?

that's the main difference between "1.0" and "2.0". the dhtml crap was always there.

Re:More like Web 1.0.2.14

[jacksonj04]

What's new is that before you couldn't easily integrate. Sure, I could use Notepad and knock up a website with some photos on it. Alternatively I could use Flickr, upload them and tag them.

First way - Search engine may be able to find them. Alteration meant a lot of ballache.

Second way - I can quickly navigate tags, build sets, and organise.

To use your example of Amazon, the kind of integration means that not only are reviews in one place, but it's easy to work out if ther reviewer is good (Based on the useful or not votes). It could also work out if that person is an expert on the topic, based on the kind of products he usually buys or looks at.

Re:More like Web 1.0.2.14

[MightyMartian]

None of your "Web 2.0" stuff is really anything terribly novel. This is the problem with the entire notion, it's nothing more than marketing hype. Yes, Wikis make collaboration easier, but come on, Amazon has merely refined the online store, but those have been around for a decade now.

Web 2.0 makes it sound like some sort of paradigm shift, when, if such a thing even exists outside the minds of technology editorialists and marketers (who, I have a hunch, are the same damn thing), it's merely just part of a refinement and evolution of the web. Maybe this sort of thing makes shareholders and VCs go wild with expectation, but to people who have worked with the web for longer than a couple of years, it really boils down to "what's the hype"?

Re:More like Web 1.0.2.14

[mspohr]

My favorite quote from TFA:

"It's this piece that often flips the "bozo bit" of technical people, who often have engineering background that demand explanations in terms of technology and often don't appreciate the social dimension. "

Re:More like Web 1.0.2.14

[jbolden]

Nothing in web 1.0 was terribly novel either. Nothing in usenet was terribly novel (netnews existed on Lan's before). But at each step the effect was huge. Usenet only really was useful when you could usenet talk to people you otherwise couldn't find. HTML only really worked when you could "surf" which meant a critical mass of information, etc... Quantity matters.

Email couldn't really become a useful tool for general business use until AOL got millions of joe average people on the web. Hell AOL wouldn't have been possible without getting millions of people, who liked phone sex enough to fund a network, together. Quantity matter a lot. As I said I was on the internet before there was a "web" and I do see this as a big thing. There never was anything like Wikipedia or Amazon reviews. Not because you didn't have book reviews but you couldn't get 20 reviews on every obscure title you were interested in.

  MySpace does more page views than Ebay and it is growing fast (something like 200k new users / month). Heck it primarily female teenage audience. What was the last computer thing that hit that demographic at all? That brings a whole new group of people to the web to do, whatever the hell teenage girls do when they are home.

Web 2.0 isn't a technological breakthrough, though it may drive others in later stages (just as web 1.0 drove broadband and corporate LAN/WAN technology) its a cultural breakthrough.

Re:More like Web 1.0.2.14

[jbolden]

Wiki/forums/reviews just remove the need for search engines and usenet to find certain kinds of information.

No not all. They go much further. They prompt people to unify and create information. I'll do a Wiki page on all sorts of things I wouldn't bother running a website on. More importantly I'll add to other Wikis even more freely. The net result is much more information in my head becomes available for a wide community. Multiply that by tens of millions of people and suddenly you have an order of magnitude more information for the search engines to find.

Myspace just removes the need for an HTML editor to run your own crappy website.

IE used to ship with an HTML editor. Geocities was free. They didn't have these kinds of numbers. I really can't effectively debate MySpace due to demographics so see below where I can be more effective.

Amazon offers book reviews on their site instead of you having to look elswhere for a review. I don't really see where that's a new "version" of the web.

No it offers book reviews by people who don't write reviews for a living and wouldn't run their own book review websites, but are willing to every now and then post a review. 20 million people x 2 reviews / year each x 5 years = 200m extra reviews. And those kinds of numbers create reviews on obscure titles. And that is important.

What's new is the effects of quantity. Just as AOL made email useful for business because finally there was a critical mass of customers who had an email account.

Re:More like Web 1.0.2.14

[Theatetus]

Wiki/forums/reviews just remove the need for search engines and usenet to find certain kinds of information.

Wrong. They let me, John Q Whoever, publish information for others to find, and find information others have published. Now, in one sense this was true before, since every jackass could (and did) make a geocities or aol homepage. What I think is the key difference (if there is one) is that in earlier setups, making web content was seen as a separate process from consuming it. It used different tools (a text or html editor, ftp, etc.) than surfing and was done by a different -- and much smaller -- population.

Wiki, amazon, myspace, etc. (hell, even /.) all have made the process of publishing our own information not *that* distinct from the process of finding information others have published. This, btw, was Berners-Lee's goal of the project; it only took about 17 years to happen...

Of course, the downside of every jackass being able to publish information is that, well, every jackass does publish information. But, given the choice between wading through the information published by a thousand jackasses, and letting one jackass with a financial interest in the subject "select" for me, I'll pick to wade through it myself. It's why napster (and now gnutella) were better than the A&R depts of record labels. It's why amazon is better than publishers' press reviews. It's why mercola is better than NIH. It's why Linux is better than Windows. It's why democracy, for all its multiple-jackass-induced flaws, is better than a dictatorship, even a benevolent one.

Re:More like Web 1.0.2.14

[PietjeJantje]

I disagree. As someone who was around from Mosaic 0.9b, I find the irony from so called power users towards AJAX rather irritating.

There are two types. One: Oooh, I'm so experienced, I witnessed how, from the David Siegel's "Making Killer Web Site" area, people can make really crap stuff using the tools provided for them. Yes. I can also predict that, if you give them more powerful tools which can brake the important simple "page" concept, it will go wrong. Ajax sucks and is what is "bevel" or "drop shadow" for amateur Photoshop users.

Two: It's all nice and stuff although why use that horrible crap when programming in X is so much superior, and I don't see it particularly changing things.

Reply to one: Go back to DOS, you'll like it. I'm here for the good stuff that comes out of it and like advancement.

Second: You're thinking in the box, and it is a limited box. You're thinking: With Ajax one can have all these little interfaces and stuff like rss feeds updated realtime. I'm thinking that the new paradigm as opposed to one where requests are served, and the user/request is gone/destroyed, will lead to types of applications which are fundamentally different. Now you will ask: what types? and this is of course exactly the question which can't be answered, but paradoxically at the same time provides the "revolutionary" potential. If people wouldn't have become so goddamn cynical. However the fact that people rushed to the gold the end of last century, and the same people rushed away again, is irrelevant to the technial potentials of DHTML/AJAX. It ain't a revolution of course, if you consider now and then, you can order from Amazon and read Slashdot the same way, nor will you wake up one morning with lots of cash, while hopefully Frenchies will not be hurrying you to the guillotine. I'll admit that.

Re:More like Web 1.0.2.14

[PFI_Optix]

There were a lot of steps between the first way and the "second" (2.0) way.

This isn't a new web. This isn't a revolutionary web. We haven't reached some magical point where it all seems new again. if anything, I'd call this Web 1.5. We're still years away from acheiving the web a lot of us imagined it becoming years ago.

Re:More like Web 1.0.2.14

[jacksonj04]

I would argue it's a major change in functionality. Static HTML was 1.0. The ability for servers to use CGI and do some 'thinking' about what to give you was 1.5. The ability for groups of users to directly influence the returned content is 2.0.

Um...

[Anonymous Coward]

MySpace is not 'Web 2.0'. It's 'GeoCities 2.0' if anything.

Re:Um...

[Disavian]

On the contrary. GeoCities didn't have a worm, to my knowlege.

MySpace is sort of a step sideways from GeoCities. Or down. Which of those depends on whether or not you're a teenage girl.

Re:Um...

[WilliamSChips]

For personal MySpaces you're probably correct--it's mostly chain letters. For bands, MySpace is a good idea, even if the implementation is bad. Someone needs to write something like the band-promotion stuff in MySpace without the personal fluff, and make it not suck. (For example, without the millions of pictures people post, you could probably post more than 4 tracks per band)

Re:Um...

[cerelib]

PureVolume, it's MySpace for bands without all of the personal stuff.

Re:Um...

[Ramses0]

A few sides to web2.0. One is tech (assume that client has Javascript and DOM that is worth a damn). Two is "you have access your information" (supposedly flickr, apis, etc). Three is communal, collaborative activities (ie: Digg, Reddit, dare I say Kuro5hin)... Flickr tags, wikipedia collaborative editing, delicious, etc.

This is different from:

• web0.9 (publishers of static sites)
  
• web1.0 (dynamic, interactive sites, cms)
  
• web1.5 (...all of the 2.0 techs, but in bits and pieces...)
  
• web2.0 (the future, in 3-d!)
  

So one half of it is tech, the other half is collaboration, the other half is api's.

--Robert

Re:Um...

[tbmcmullen]

Dammit. Before I read this comment, I actually thought about reading the article. But if the author actually refers to MySpace as being "part of" or "using" "Web ""2.0"" then screw it. As an aside ever trying running MySpace.com through a validator? Its funny... Try it.

Marketing

[Eightyford]

The problem with Web 2.0 is that it is nothing more than a marketing term. We've had social networking for decades in the form of Usenet. There hasn't been any major shift in the way we use the internet. At least not one that deserves the 2.0 moniker.

Re:Marketing

[PFI_Optix]

A bazillion Usenet newsgroups -> A bazillion web forums
IRC -> AIM/MSN/ICQ/Y!M/GTalk
Geocities/generic free homepage site -> Myspace/generice free blog site

Yeah...nothing about any of this 2.0 stuff is really all the new and different. I think it's really just a new generation of internet users--the first generation to never really know life without it--trying to claim that "their" internet is completely different and better than anything that came before it.

Re:Marketing

[Bogtha]

The only thing I dislike more than the term "Web 2.0" are the people who blindly knee-jerk against anything mentioning it. Whether you agree or disagree with the term or how it is used, there are significant trends emerging lately that are worth paying attention to. If you write it off as a reinvention of Usenet, you aren't paying attention. "Social networking" isn't about people talking on the Internet, it's about applications that include information sharing as a tool, not as a goal in itself.

Re:Marketing

[Eightyford]

The only thing I dislike more than the term "Web 2.0" are the people who blindly knee-jerk against anything mentioning it. Whether you agree or disagree with the term or how it is used, there are significant trends emerging lately that are worth paying attention to. If you write it off as a reinvention of Usenet, you aren't paying attention. "Social networking" isn't about people talking on the Internet, it's about applications that include information sharing as a tool, not as a goal in itself.

Right, and my point was that this is just a natural evolution of the web. The entire internet is based on information sharing, so how is this revolutionary? Flickr tags?

Re:Marketing

[Bogtha]

my point was that this is just a natural evolution of the web.

It seemed you were totally denying any significant form of improvement. I too think that "Web 2.0" is evolutionary not revolutionary, and had you said that, I would have agreed. But something doesn't have to be revolutionary to be a significant improvement.

Re:Marketing

[Itchy Rich]

The problem with Web 2.0 is that it is nothing more than a marketing term.

It's a label that describes a new way of thinking about product development on the web. Sure, people had similar ideas before, but now they're more pervasive (more heads means more ideas, good and bad). Sure, you could accomplish the same effects before XmlHttpRequest using various methods, but now you get an XML parser and some of the I/O housekeeping done for you. Sure, marketing people coined the phrase, but the product that they were marketing was built by developers first, they just described the methodology that the developers had used.

Product developers now have some fresh ideas. The crap ones will get washed away by the competition, and the worthwhile ones will be left.

"Web 2.0" may just be a marketing term to you, but to people who are actually involved in these projects (i.e. me) the gradually increasing standards support in browsers is making new things far more practical than they have been previously. You can bitch and whine all you like, but you can't change that.

Re:Marketing

[the chao goes mu]

I agree. I have been hearing marketing-speak about "true/real collaborative networking" since '95. This isn't exactly a novel concept. Yes, new implementation, but not a new idea. It's like calling Aristotle "Philosophy 2.0" because he wasn't Plato. Nope, both philosophers. And this is, for better or worse, pretty much the same old web, and same old marketing-speak hype.

Re:Marketing

[russellh]

You're a stick-in-the-mud.

After the bubble, much of the early innovation on the web slowed almost to a halt. there was a big lull. Nothing much happened for a few years, and we were pretty distracted by 9-11.

But lots of interesting and new things have been happening lately. It's like the early days of the web again in a lot of ways, but we're more mature and we have a better sense of what works on the web and what doesn't. And there is a huge user base now. It helps to put a term around this, and web 2.0 is as good as anything for me.

Warning:

[novus ordo]

The Bozo bit has been flipped!

Just to clear things up...

[TechnoGuyRob]

This includes the Ajax phenomenon being actively purused by Microsoft and Google.

They mean pursued (I'm assuming), not perused.

This is a pretty long article, so I'll sum it up for you guys by taking the important passages:

Key Aspects of Web 2.0

- The Web and all its connected devices as one global platform of reusable services and data
- Data consumption and remixing from all sources, particularly user generated data
- Continuous and seamless update of software and data, often very rapidly
- Rich and interactive user interfaces
- Architecture of participation that encourages user contribution

...
In a way similar to how open source software (OSS) democratized and decentralized control of software creation, commoditizing it relentlessly along the way, Web 2.0 sites is doing same thing with the control structures of society and business. Web 2.0 represents the unyielding shift towards putting the power to publish, communicate, socialize, and engage, using an almost-dizzying array of methods, in online two-way discourse and interchange. The Web is the medium, but it's powered by people.
...
We are seeing surprisingly active interest in the conference circuit, with a large number of sessions about SOA, Ajax, and Web 2.0 in the enterprise in the next few months.

Also, this image is a particularly interesting comparison of the growth of various Web 2.0 sites. The author finishes with some predictions:

Remaining predictions: 1-The hype is going to ramp down quite a bit this year. 2- People will focus much more on using the ideas and ignoring the Web 2.0 hypesters more often. And 3- A lot of folks will still hate the term Web 2.0.

Re:Just to clear things up...

[Trails]

You forgot "Perpetual beta", one of the key "selling points" of "Web 2.0". However, the people who would buy into both the BS of Web 2.0 and "perpetual beta" (aka "perpetual bugs") deserve what they get. Happy investing folks, I'm gonna go find a stiff drink.

Web 2.0? No thanks.

[gEvil (beta)]

If there's one thing I can't stand, it's forced upgrades. I'll stick with my Web 1.1.19 (experimental), thank you very much.

Re:Web 2.0? No thanks.

[thefirelane]

I'll stick with my Web 1.1.19 (experimental), thank you very much

Me too,
I'm waiting for web 3.1

Re:Web 2.0? No thanks.

[blueskies]

I'm waiting for web 3.1

Screw 3.1. It is teh sux0r. 3.11 with Workgroups allow you to network with other Computers and it will introduce a bunch of new buzzwords.

When will this hit e-commerce?

[PacoHernandez]

It's interesting that the majority of these "Web 2.0" companies are still making their money off of paid advertisements, which seems to be a very "old web" business model. Are there any companies that are doing new and interesting things with commerce itself?

Re:When will this hit e-commerce?

[Run4yourlives]

37 signals: most of their stuff is subscription based.

www.37signals.com

Re:When will this hit e-commerce?

[borkus]

Step 1. Collect underpants.
Step 2. Web 2.0
Step 3. Profit!

Re:When will this hit e-commerce?

[jbolden]

Amazon: Amazon reviews is classic web 2.0
Apple: linking between customer lists "if you liked X you'll also like Y"

Also you have lots of B2B web2.0 with online collaborative applications. Logistics has been front runners in this.

The state is: It's more popular than it was last x

[Lord Bitman]

"Web 2.0" has been around since 1654. It's more popular now than it was then. Tune in next week for the exciting revelation that it isnt popular anymore.

In all seriousness, though: increased use of virtual machines and security and such will make "lolit'slikeanapplicationbutinawebbrowserzomg" unneccessary. The idea that it is popular for security reasons is actually, from a security standpoint, sickening. That's just a great way to look at how sorry the state of every other part of the security world is.

Applets and AJAX

[chroma]

Much of the interactivity and cross platform capability we're being promised with AJAX sounds suspiciously like the buzz surrounding Java applets 10 years or so ago. However, AJAX is currently in a pretty primitive state. You still have to worry about browser compatibility issues. Tools and libraries are pretty simplistic. You also face the fun issue of dealing with yet another programming language, in addition to whatever HTML, SQL, and XML you're using, plus your server-side language of choice.

Given all of this, is AJAX really worth it for web applications?

Re:Applets and AJAX

[berserc]

I agree ... wasn't Sun supposed to make JAVA do all of this? There were supposed to be JAVA websites for word processing, spreadsheets and a virtual desktop in 1996. Microsoft should have been killed six times over by now.

Calling it web 2.0 is just silly, lets call it JAVA 2.0.

Re:Applets and AJAX

[Doctor Memory]

Yeah, it's kind of funny: we finally get sufficient broadband adoption to make applets viable, and they're usurped by an HTTP kludge. Maybe applets will be The Once and Future Slender Client.

Re:Applets and AJAX

[Bogtha]

we finally get sufficient broadband adoption to make applets viable, and they're usurped by an HTTP kludge.

I see it the other way around, with the applets being the kludge. Ajax/JavaScript/CSS/DOM/etc all work with the web - using and manipulating markup, URIs and all the other good stuff that makes the web so powerful. Applets, on the other hand, throw that all away, and cordon off a part of the page to build its own interface in.

That's not a web application, that's a traditional application that's hijacked the browser to get onto your machine. While that might be nice for people used to building traditional applications, it's ignoring the advantages that the WWW brings to the table.

Re:Applets and AJAX

[WamBamBoozle]

I see it the other way around, with the applets being the kludge. Ajax/JavaScript/CSS/DOM/etc all work with the web - using and manipulating markup, URIs and all the other good stuff that makes the web so powerful. Applets, on the other hand, throw that all away, and cordon off a part of the page to build its own interface in.

That is turning a blind eye to the fact that every browser now has to ship with a JavaScript interpretor. Why not a Java interpretor as well? The Netscape interface to Java made manipulating the DOM from Java every bit as easy and natural as it is from JavaScript.

That's not a web application, that's a traditional application that's hijacked the browser to get onto your machine. While that might be nice for people used to building traditional applications, it's ignoring the advantages that the WWW brings to the table.

The level of interactivity and responsiveness you can craft in a Java applet is a whole lot better than what you can do with Web 2.0. Java applet's can interact with your graphic card, can take over the screen, and all while staying in a secure sandbox. It was actually designed for this stuff, instead of the evolving mess of standards of dizzying complexity that we lovingly call Web 2.0.

Having a Java engine resident and running while visiting applets is a whole different experience from the plug-in marshalling that happens now. Running Java applets from the pure Java browser HotJava was really delightful. Its always puzzled me that Sun didn't pursue the development of that browser.

Re:The state of "Web2.0" is...

[ergo98]

Why do I have to tell this to /. readers?

Most /. readers already know this. In fact it's pretty humorous that the submitter mentions MySpace, given that MySpace is very much Web 1.0.

More and more people are using the internet for more and more things. Woot. More like Web 1.1 than Web 2.0. The term rightly gets derision because it deserves it: the continual growth and continual technology evolution is suddenly noticed by some that are unaware, and they decree that they've witnessed a revolution rather than an evolution.

Re:the brilliant idea...

[sottitron]

2) Value is shifting from ownership to experiences

so I meant to say "These business folks are AMAZING." Now I feel really badly because I just lowered the level of experience for some slashdotters, thus bringing down the value of slashdot and the entire web... Sorry!

Who numbered this release?

[Red Flayer]

Web 2.0? Hardly.

How about Web 1.21 beta?

Or even better, how about just understanding that the changes in the way the Web is used are incremental and calling it "Web 2.0" in 2006 is just as silly as calling it "Web.com" in 1999 would have been.

Regardless of what it's called, the intent is to make sure people are aware that the Web offers experiences different from what it offered to the mainstream even three years ago. Because we all need to feel good about the newfangled Web we're using, right? We shouldn't take all the goodiness for granted, right?

The Web is a utility, that's all. It's not new and improved version 2.0! It's the same constantly evolving data transfer utility it's ever been.

Re:Who numbered this release?

[novus ordo]

#ifndef BRAIN
while(clueless)
printf("Web %i.0", web++);
#endif

StumbleUpon

[gihan_ripper]

One of my favourite innovations in recent years has been StumbleUpon. It's a very simple idea — you install a StumbleUpon Firefox toolbar and click the "Thumbs Up" button when you come across sites you like, or the "Thumbs Down" button for sites you don't like. This way, StumbleUpon builds up a profile of the sorts of web surfer you are, and will then offer up a suggested website when you hit the "Stumble" button.

Using StumbleUpon, I've been presented with many really cool websites I woudn't have been able to find using Google, because I wouldn't have known to search for them. It seems my own interests are interactive flash websites, mathematics news, food, and philosophy. You mileage will vary, but will be catered for none the less.

Re:StumbleUpon

[MightyMartian]

And let me guess, it also just happens to send that info on to marketing companies.

Re:StumbleUpon

[DebianDog]

WOW! Yesterdays Tivo technology, here today. WOOT!

Re:StumbleUpon

[Doctor Faustus]

Does it just note what categories you're interested in, or does it actually compare your ratings with other people and figure out that you tend to rate things similarly to UserX and might like other things that s/he does? The second should be far more powerful, but I haven't quite figured out the data structures it would take to do it efficiently on a large scale.

Yes, TiVo can figure out that I'm interested in science, history, cooking and comedy, but I could've told it that directly.

Re:StumbleUpon

[jbolden]

1) Assume 10m users
2) Assume 200 site ratings each (so 2b total ratings)
3) build an IOT (call it X) on site:rating:user index this table on user
4) when I log in pull up all the 200 blocks I'm in (basically a list of other users with the same sites). This is easy because of the user index
5) do a frequency count for username
6) Using the index on I pull up sites they like

I can make this better if I like by having a user/frequence count table and for example adjusting 5 (so that heavy raters don't end up everyone's list).

Re:StumbleUpon

[maxume]

http://del.icio.us/recent is similarly useful, but you have to pick what interests you. It is a little spammy lately.

http://del.icio.us/popular too, but it's a bit more static.

Re:StumbleUpon

[parkrrrr]

Better than "do a frequency count for username" would be something along the lines of "do a dot product of my ratings vector with username's ratings vector and normalize." Optionally, weight for margin of error (so the user who really likes one thing that you really like but otherwise doesn't intersect with your ratings vector at all ranks lower than the one who likes a dozen things you likes and hates half a dozen things that you hate.)

Re:StumbleUpon

[Chris Shannon]

Stumbleupon doesn't send your personal info to marketers. Advertising can be purchased from Stumbleupon, and will only been shown to stumblers whose profile shows they are interested in the relevant topics.

Incidentally, a good friend of mine is the founder of SU, we took the same data mining class at the U of Calgary, he's an honent guy. StumbleUpon shows your [advertising] page directly to websurfers according to preferences and demographics, ensuring only receptive audiences view your ad. This targeting approach also gives you insightful feedback from potential customers regarding the quality of your site.

Personally, I can rarely be sure that the stumble is an ad or not. Stumbleupon finds catagorizes you like, but also finds users with similar interests and shows you pages they like.

Re:StumbleUpon

[jbolden]

That's too expensive. You are doing the dot product against all 10m users. Using my system you are only hitting a small subset of the users (those that are in the same blocks as you). Also the computation of a sum is much much cheaper than a full dot product.

Obviously a weighted comparison works best but even if you compute that monthly you are talking 3 trillion dot products per day.

Re:StumbleUpon

[MightyMartian]

So, in other words, you're spamming ./ for your pal. Don't you know the rules? Only the editors are allowed to do that.

Re:StumbleUpon

[Chris Shannon]

I realize you're joking but my buddy has ranted to me on numerous occasions about how an uninformed article or comment suggesting that Stumbleupon contains spyware or sells your personal info damages the reputation of the project.

Re:StumbleUpon

[parkrrrr]

I guess I wasn't clear. I was only proposing doing the dot product against the same subset of users as you were; I was just replacing your counting occurrences with something that would actually be able to tell if the user tended to rate things the same way you do. Unless your version filters out negative ratings altogether, it doesn't seem to distinguish between someone who likes everything you like and someone who dislikes everything you like, so long as you all rated the same things.

Re:StumbleUpon

[jbolden]

Actually you are still doing a bit more. Yeah that would work fine (though still a lot more CPU intensive but no extra disk). From the description it didn't sound like there was a "thumbs down" button if there is then I agree I'm picking up a guy who hates the things you like. But then again why does he keep going to the same sites?

Re:The state of "Web2.0" is...

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

"Web2.0" is still-another-stupid-buzzword and, technically, doesn't exist.

Web 2.0 exists. It's all about making it easier for end users to create web content. That's it really. No big deal, except of course when you multiply it's effect by all the new users now able to create content. Then what you get is a hell of a lot more rough out there, but consequently a few more diamonds.

Web 2.0

[mattwarden]

Since people were looking for a name which reflected the parallel with 'AJAX', they were forced to select another name which made you want to stab yourself.

Re:Web 2.0

[Doctor Faustus]

Since people were looking for a name which reflected the parallel with 'AJAX', they were forced to select another name which made you want to stab yourself.

I have no mod points here, but kudos on the Illiad reference.

Not anymore...

[Frosty Piss]

That's what really drives the web technology!

Old school thinking. That was only really true years ago when "legit" business was still new to the Internet. In my opinion, Porn really hasn't moved that much since the 2000 timeframe. Sure, there are better video codecs, but they are nolonger the product of porn production.

the future of web technologies

[BewireNomali]

... mobile phones. It's rather accepted that JApan in some respects is ahead of us as far as technical innovation and acceptance of tech. For the Asian countries - phones and functional mobiles are sprinting out ahead. A couple of Japanese contractors I recently worked with, in my age range, were rather disdainful of terminals and preferred to do a lot of things on handhelds. One was actually surprised that I was always notebook equipped. There are logistic issues involved - namely, the Japanese are a small people with smaller hands - suited well to handhelds, but nonetheless.... mobiles are the future of web tech.

the mobile companies here stifle innovation. it's the mobiles that are missing the boat.

Web 2.0 is not about tech. It's about marketers finally realizing what the fuck has been happening on the web since its dawn - and their need to put words to it. the future of the web is that you take it with you - not fucking MySpace.

Re:the future of web technologies

[Illbay]

It's rather accepted that JApan in some respects is ahead of us as far as technical innovation and acceptance of tech.

No.

It's accepted that Japanese are ahead of anyone else in innovation and acceptance of technology that JAPANESE like to use.

Conversely, we in the U.S. are ahead of everyone else in innovation and acceptance of the technology that WE want to use.

And so forth.

Re:the future of web technologies

[BewireNomali]

likely not.

american television is becoming quickly like japanese television, where reality television has dominated for a bit longer than here. in fact, as far as animation and reality goes - we're following the japanese blueprint. The japanese watch the most television in the world - and the US is primed to match it as we expand our offerings and serve sub-markets more directly.

we're living longer, like them. also, like them, the suicide rates for seniors are rising.

we also have a population wrinkle - a vexing declining birthrate.

the major difference between the US and Japan is the disparity between population types. Japan is by and large an urban marketplace - with a lot of population concentrated in urban centers. While the US has this as well - we have vast swatches of land with relatively sparse population and varying technological uptake. The vast amount of land is prohibitive - as relates to Wifi/Cable/etc.

the phone as a digital wallet. It's been around Japan for a minute. Paypal is offering a service now - others will follow - to allow the phone to function as a method of payment.

smartphones aren't ubiquitious in the US not because of preference, rather because of a lack of options. What are amongst the most popular phones amongst teenagers and young adults these days: the Sidekick and the Blackberry (sidekick II no longer because it's been around for a while without redesign - blackberries not as popular as sidekicks). I've had both and also had a treo. The Sidekick became so popular that Cingular started offering it with a prepay data only plan so that they can get it into the hands of kids who couldn't get plans otherwise or for young adults with shitty credit records.

LACK of OPTIONS is what drives the american mobile industry. Handhelds would have taken off a long time ago if they were just offered.

The rising generation represents a global generation that is bound by a global popular culture. They have much more in common with one another (by this I mean in first world countries) than you might suspect. And the US mobile industry is handcuffing its clients.

Re:the future of web technologies

[Illbay]

...american television is becoming quickly like japanese television, where reality television has dominated for a bit longer than here...

In the first place, the popularity of certain kinds of entertainment has nothing to do with technology preference. Although I might add that American entertainment taste is fickle and faddish--back in the 70s you had "The Gong Show" and it was *huge*. You also have had various game show formats most of which are "big" for awhile then die off.

And American entertainment moguls borrow from other places all the time--such as the "home makeover" fad that actually came from British TV.

But again, all that is beside the point. Japanese technology marketing mirrors the preferences of the Japanese consumer, and so does American, European, etc. I don't think you can say anyone is "ahead" since everyone pretty much has all the core technologies available through the global marketplace.

It's all market preference.

Re:What marketing BS.

[eln]

Let us not let the marketeers ruin the Internet/I

Sorry, you're 11 years too late for that.

I agree completely

[pHatidic]

From something I wrote on this subject:

The "killer apps" of tomorrow's mobile infocom industry won't be hardware devices or software programs but social practices. --Howard Rheingold

In his recent essay, Paul Graham pans Web 2.0 because it can't be used to make predictions. Paul is right; the reason is that we have been classing Web 2.0 by its technology instead of its social implications.

Because, really, who gives a shit about technology? I don't care about technology, I care about me. I don't want to know how Web 2.0 will get me AJAX, I want to know how Web 2.0 well get me laid.

When caught in the throes of our meme 2.0 ideations, it should be the social over the technological that inspires. When we do this, not only can we make falsifiable predictions, but we can make actionable business plans and compelling emotional appeals as well.

So if you think it's too late to start a billion dollar AJAX business... You're right. But don't worry; the revolution isn't over, it's barely begun.

Re:I agree completely

[MrNougat]

I want to know how Web 2.0 will get me laid.

Web 2.0 can get me laid?! That's just what I've been looking for! I bet my wife will be surprised to find this out as well.

Web 2.0 = low-contrast pastel colors

[Bloodwine]

For all the talk of CSS and XHTML making content more accessible, I find it funny that color-blind people are brushed under the rug with all the low-contrast designs most of these Web 2.0 sites are sporting.

Re:Web 2.0 = low-contrast pastel colors

[Bogtha]

One of the points of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is that the author's styles cascade with the user's styles. If you've got problems with a colour scheme, set up your browser to use a different colour scheme. Some browsers make this easier than others, but a rule like * { background: white !important; color: black !important; } fixes a lot of contrast problems.

But ignore anybody who says that XHTML makes things more accessible, they don't know what they are talking about.

Re:What marketing BS.

[eln]

One of these days I'll learn to preview my posts before submitting.

Insert close-italics tag where appropriate.

Re:The state of "Web2.0" is...

[MightyMartian]

Web 2.0 exists. It's all about making it easier for end users to create web content. That's it really. No big deal, except of course when you multiply it's effect by all the new users now able to create content. Then what you get is a hell of a lot more rough out there, but consequently a few more diamonds.

Hmmm... let me look that up... Ah yes, it's definition #429 of what Web 2.0 is.

It's Marketing, People!

[Greyfox]

It doesn't matter that terminal apps have been doing it for 30 years. It doesn't matter that web apps are kludgy because http is stateless. It doesn't matter that you have to keep a lot of data server side. Joe Average User likes the Web and doesn't disable JavaScript, so he's going to respond favorably to anything that improves the interface. If you can present him with what seems like a more responsive application, he's going to be happy. It doesn't matter that you could build an executable that he could download and run that would be just as fast if not faster.

We can be interactive application snobs all we want to but the corporate PHBs are already eating this stuff up. That's why there's all the buzz right now. That means that for the next several years until the next buzzword item comes up, there'll be good money in knowing this stuff. I'd rather be an employed Web 2.0 programmer than an unemployed COBOL programmer.

Since the trend seems to be going this way, it should be possible to predict what the next buzzword item will be, too. Just look at what UNIX was doing 28 years ago and the answer should be there somewhere...

200% fully buzzword compliant!

[khasim]

Accept no substitutes!

global platform
democratized
decentralized
commoditizing
control structures
power
socialize
engage
interchange

The first thing you should learn is that when someone is using buzzwords, they're attempting to sell you on something, not inform you. Selling appeals to emotions.

What is Web 2.0?

[iammaxus]

From articles I read 3 or 4 years ago, I was under the impression that Web 2.0 technologies were mostly focused on adding semantic data to the web. Web 2.0 was supposed to enable increased machine interface to the web. It seems that this keyword has been reassigned to simply encompass any recent web technologies as the semantic information trend hasn't really yielded any big results yet (I think we can all agree that rss and such are having less impact on users than AJAX interfaces that everyone and their mother are adding to web apps. They really do change the user experience significantly, especially for novice users.)

Re:What is Web 2.0?

[General Alcazar]

Me too. I thought Web 2.0 would be the Semantic Web. This all sounds more like Web 1.02 to me.

Along the same line of Synergy and Proactive.. ..

[Arwing]

Web 2.0 is the word you are going to hear in the staff meeting of IT department for years to come. Just call it what it is, a buzz word and nothing else. I can hear every CIO telling their drones "We need to build a site in this new age of 'Web 2.0' and proactively create synergy between our e-business and client".
Granted, there are a lot of new development and trends going on, and things from ajax to user created contents are really going to change the way we view the web, that does not make the web to the stage of "2.0". For me, web is (hopefully) ever evolving, and it will just be THE web, with no version number attached at the end.

The irony of X

[amightywind]

It's rather ironic that we're trying to get browsers to do what other application platforms have been able to do since the late 1970s. I sometimes wonder if the web browser, like the gopher client before it, should be dropped for something, well, a little less kludgy and arcane.

It is also ironic that these days the distributed capability of X Windows (-display host:server:screen) is very portable, efficient, universal, and ignored for a less universal solution, HTTP.

Re:The irony of X

[doodlebumm]

MS Windows doesn't have X already built in, so the functionality using the lowest common denominator was chosen. I am not making a case for the decision, just explaining the reality. I think you are preaching to the choir when I read what you are saying, but there are plenty of others with different opinions. I have said for years that X should have been the standard that MS used for their windowing, but MS didn't own X, so they settled for creating their own, much-less-useable windowing environment (that at least they owned and could control). Let's all give MS a round of applause for such forward thinking ideals!!! *dead silence*

Re:The irony of X

[LordOfTheNoobs]

*stands up all alone cheering wildly, notices noone else is, sits back down hurriedly*

Re:The irony of X

[jdeluise]

I'm sorry, but X is neither efficient for the client or the server. The premise behind X is that the application is running on the server (not the X server) and merely displaying on the workstation (the X server). Each instance of said application is going to consume massive resources (on the server..again not the X server), and is ABSOLUTELY NOT SCALABLE! Network-wise this is not ideal either as their is a tremendous amount of inefficient bi-directional communication just to click buttons and type in fields. This equals poor performance for the client (and what about printing, or other types of interactions that are now made far more difficult because the application is not actually running on your machine?) Have you ever tried to run X applications over a modem connection?? Well let me tell you the performance is miserable, even when you use X compression protocol modules.

I think the requirement of any scalable solution is for the application to in fact run on the client and merely communicate with the server. This cuts down on excess bandwidth usage, memory usage and CPU usage on the server while providing a much faster and better experience for the end-user. I'm not saying AJAX et. all is the solution but X certainly is not!

Re:The irony of X

[heinousjay]

their own, much-less-useable

I can't agree with you on that. Microsoft's windowing system is less featureful, but it's very usable. Aside from expose in OS X, I prefer Windows for its cleanliness and consistency over every other platform.

In any case, coding applications to run in a browser is a proposition with less risk and faster turnaround than pretty much every other platform, so it definitely has some advantages over just doing 'X' everywhere.

Re:The irony of X

[jsebrech]

I have said for years that X should have been the standard that MS used for their windowing, but MS didn't own X, so they settled for creating their own, much-less-useable windowing environment (that at least they owned and could control).

X was overkill for the hardware early windows ran on. Remember, in the days of windows 1.0, a 286 with 1 megabyte of ram was a beefy machine. By the time windows 3.0 was out (the first version that mattered), people were still predominately using 386's with 4 megs of ram. The overhead of X was prohibitive. Not using it was a straightforward technical decision.

And ofcourse, once there was legacy... Nobody does legacy on the desktop better than microsoft, which is windows' curse as well as its boon.

Incidentally, X isn't THAT wonderful. It doesn't do anything better than the other windowing systems apart from networking, and VNC/citrix/... mostly make up for windows' deficiencies in that area.

Re:The irony of X

[jc42]

X was overkill for the hardware early windows ran on. Remember, in the days of windows 1.0, a 286 with 1 megabyte of ram was a beefy machine. By the time windows 3.0 was out (the first version that mattered), people were still predominately using 386's with 4 megs of ram.

Jim Gettys has commented that the machines he (and a few friends) built X on were vaxen with no more than 2 MB of memory. He has also expressed mild dismay at the bloat in current X releases. One of his projects is to help get X running on the growing flock of linux PDAs, which requires trimming it back down to something with a much smaller footstep. Current PDAs usually have much more memory than the machines that he built X on. But identifying and trimming the bloat is a time-consuming process; experienced programmers know how much easier it is to add code that to remove code.

In any case, when MS Windows first came out, X Windows would have easily fit in the memory limits. X's size couldn't have been MS's reason for rejecting it. Much more likely is the theory that they wanted something that they could own, and they couldn't own X Windows. This is believable, because it's consistent with MS's general history.

Replace MySpace!!

[crhylove]

We really need an "open source" replacement for MySpace. It's dangerous to allow a private corporation to run a network that is gaining so much importance, particularly among the youth.

What would be IDEAL, however would be a fully interactive metaverse, ala quake 2 with real time voice for people within 50 "yards" of each other. And virtual houses that could still house the virtual MySpace replacement on one wall.

I've got $50 for anyone with a working prototype..... ...I'm recommending we treat it like a p2p app so it scales well, also. Say every computer on the node houses 100 of the nearest houses and avatars and MySpace walls of the other 99 users in that "node".... Then whethter the other 99 people are on or not, other people can still visit any house (or myspace wall) in that node, so long as at least one member of the node is online. Maybe 100 is too high a number, but given what the average pc is capable of these days, I doubt it.

Let me know when you've got it up and running....

rhY

Re:Replace MySpace!!

[crhylove]

Well I've read them both, and my ideas on the metaverse are more from my days of quake 2 on the LAN than anything else including those two books. Turning voice off would obviously be an option as well, and then let's remember that 2d objects can exist in a 3d world, but giving people a 3d way of navigating is going to seem MUCH more natural and really help your grandma, grandkids, etc. learn how to surf and get more relevant information. My grandma doesn't know how to use wikipedia for pete's sake, but if we made it look like a 3d library avatar, she'd be all over it.

rhY

More Management Bafflegab

[Spinlock_1977]

I must be thick (come guys, tell me), but this article strikes me as falling into the "meaningless bubble diagrams connecting unconnectable things" category. I did like the graphs at the end that give you some numbers on ajax traffic.

But all that other crap? Like (and I quote):

Key Aspects of Web 2.0:
- The Web and all its connected devices as one global platform of reusable services and data
- Data consumption and remixing from all sources, particularly user generated data
- Continuous and seamless update of software and data, often very rapidly
- Rich and interactive user interfaces
- Architecture of participation that encourages user contribution

Good God where does this dross emanate from? These are the engineering principles that bind together Web 2.0 concepts? It's notable that these attributes can also describe a client/server or 3-tier application, if you hold head just right. They could also describe how my grandmother's recipee book worked. Very interactive... encouraged user participation and contribution (that's what the pencil dangling from it was for).

If you're the hard-core engineering type, spare yourself a disorienting tour of pseduo-engineering psycho-babble and skip to the graphs at the end.

Was I too harsh?

Re:More Management Bafflegab

[WWWWolf]

Well, it's just marketingspeak. Let me translate it to geek.

"The Web and all its connected devices as one global platform of reusable services and data": When "Web 1.0" meant that everything is screen-scrapeable and people went "good heavens!" when someone even as much as suggested syndicating data, Web 2.0 means our technology has progressed so much websites automatically generate RSS feeds and the site owners have given up just a little bit on copyright paranoia in that regard.

"Data consumption and remixing from all sources, particularly user generated data": I can add a "what music I listened to" box on my blog's sidebar, and stuff like that. With a little bit of RSS and XML-RPC thrown in.

"Continuous and seamless update of software and data, often very rapidly" Kind of like saying "we're deploying a web application and updating the thing on the server as we go ong" but that doesn't sound as marketable, now does it?

"Rich and interactive user interfaces": Abusing JavaScript and DHTML to add "almost like desktop thingy!"-like user interface tricks to the website. Sometimes useful ones, often just l33t and useless ones. Oh, and "Back" button is dead too.

"Architecture of participation that encourages user contribution": Users can tag your shit and see how they tagged your shit. Perhaps blog about it too.

Re:More Management Bafflegab

[Spinlock_1977]

Thanks for the translation WWWWolf - you have successfully stenched the flow of blood from my ears.

But it raises perhaps two salient questions:

1) Why does this guy write in a style that is clearly imprecise (and therefore, somewhat unhelpful), and
2) Since the stated qualities apparently apply to so many other forms of applications, is this guy really communicating anything at all?

When I think of answers to these questions, I'm somewhat disinclined to ever read another word from this guy.

keywords, not "Marketing bullshit"

[gravyface]

I don't understand why the coining of an umbrella term that describes a set of technologies and technique receives so much backlash from the /. crowd.

Think Google "keyword" -- have you ever tried to search for ambiguous technical terms on Google? If I search for "web 2.0 *insert any relevant term here*" I have an excellent chance of finding what I'm looking for. Same goes for "jboss" or "ubuntu" etc.

I, for one, welcome our umbrella term-coining overlords.

Web 2.what?

[MrPsycho]

When I read the headline I thought the article was referring to Internet 2, which of course is REAL. Its what my university is connected to and it makes for very accessible high-speed porn from other Internet 2 capable universities.

Web 2.1 is the future

[Borogove]

Bah! Web 2.0 is so outmoded.

If you're not running Web 2.1, you might as well go back to the bad old days when people actually used client software for email and instant messaging. 2.1 is the only way of doing stuff online.

You can get a demo of what's on offer here: http://cheese.blartwendo.com/web21-demo.html

Meanwhile, supporters will be pleased to hear about the imminent release of the long awaited Web 2.1 offshoot, Azotaemia 2.1.

Web 3.1

[David Off]

Web 2.0? As Microsoft is involved everyone knows it won't be usable until Web 3.1 is released... although it will be named Web 2010.

Personally I'm sticking with eXtreme Web.

morfik

[codepunk]

I have been investigating some of these tool sets and so far I would say morfik has
everyone stomped by a long shot.
The still however have large strikes against them.
Their visual development environment only runs on windows...strike one. The platform
thus far is closed source...strike two. On a plus note the compiled applications run
cross platform. On another plus note you can deploy locally disconnected as well
as connected. It supports 4 major languages as well which is another plus.

No I do not have any interest in morfik just stating some observations.

Re:What marketing BS.

[the chao goes mu]

Nerds and wankfest are not mutually exclusive. In fact, with all the pr0n, I think nerds, wankfest, and internet are pretty much a natural combination.

I'm Already on Web 3.0

[aplusjimages]

Let's start Web 3.0. Just an idea and a phrase for the next level of web browsing. It will include smell-a-vision, of course, as well as touchable sites (the later more successful for the porn industry).

Semantic Diversion

[aldheorte]

This is all semantic diversion, to put it politely. Some proponents of Web 2.0 are apparently hoping that by changing the definition of Web 2.0. they can make it look like Web 2.0 has actually proceeded in a meaningful direction. Web 2.0 has absolutely nothing to do with AJAX (AJAZ is just a fancy name for doing more on the client side with JavaScript and CSS, which is why they call it AJAX, because if they said 'client-side user interface development in JavaScript across an asynchronous network connection' everyone would rightly turn around and flee), social networking, or uploading your photos to Flickr.

If you read the original articles and specifications, such that exist, you will see that Web 2.0 is an envisioning of logical markup to enable machine intelligence in agents that work for the user. Web 2.0 envisions intelligent spiders that can follow logical paths (x is contained by y, y is a type of z, etc.), as well as a whole host of software serving the user living on top of this content and process. Look at the New Scientist article by Tim Berners-Lee awhile back (someone will have to find the link). Now, whether or not that's feasible anytime soon is debatable, but let's not be fooled by marketing chicanery into thinking that Web 2.0 has come about just because JavaScript development has been given a pretty name, social networking sites are all the rage (sixdegress.com was around from before the last bubble, it's just the new fad), and some Web services actually exist.

HTTP deficiencies

[amightywind]

Each instance of said application is going to consume massive resources (on the server..again not the X server), and is ABSOLUTELY NOT SCALABLE!

As opposed to spawning a new process or thread to handle the HTTP connection? There really isn't much difference. Your criticism might be valid if the world still connected to the internet through ppp. It is not. Considering the explosive growth in high speed networking I think the X solution has finally come of age.

Compare the HTTP architecture with X. You have a few significantly incompatable browsers that are among the most complex programs ever written. There is no steady definition of what these cesspools of code really are. For all that complexity it is remarkable how little they do! HTTP servers are less complex but must be programmed at an absurdly low level. Get into multi-tiered architectures and you have to wonder if people are designing on acid. Page navigation is a huge problem for programs with dynamic content. Those pages are generated inefficiently again and again. Information is typically passed uncompressed across the wire, which is silly.

X client interfaces (GTK/GDK, Xt/Motif, Qt, ...) are amazingly rich and robust. Your programs work perfectly remotely or locally by definition. As a programmer you never see the X protocol, which is as it should be.

Network-wise this is not ideal either as their is a tremendous amount of inefficient bi-directional communication just to click buttons and type in fields.

Bi-directional communication is sort of essential for any network app. Also all significant actions behind those HTTP button clicks are done on the server side to there is no effective difference. HTTP interfaces are very primative of course they are more efficient. Your point is invalid.

Re:HTTP deficiencies

[Bogtha]

As opposed to spawning a new process or thread to handle the HTTP connection? There really isn't much difference.

Which HTTP servers do that? The most common architecture is to spawn a few child processes on server startup, not to do it for every connection. Don't forget that because HTTP is a stateless protocol, when a connection is closed, the process can just handle another request again straight away. There's a world of difference between X and HTTP.

Your criticism might be valid if the world still connected to the internet through ppp.

I think you've completely missed the grandparent's point. It wasn't merely that the network latency is the killer, it was that maintaining a stateful connection for each and every every logged-on user (X) doesn't scale anywhere near as well as simply processing requests for information when they come in (HTTP).

You have a few significantly incompatable browsers that are among the most complex programs ever written.

You seriously think web browsers are "among the most complex programs ever written"?

HTTP servers are less complex but must be programmed at an absurdly low level.

I'm sorry, but what you are saying has simply no correlation to reality. HTTP servers must be programmed at an absurdly low level? In what way? And how are X clients any better?

Page navigation is a huge problem for programs with dynamic content. Those pages are generated inefficiently again and again. Information is typically passed uncompressed across the wire, which is silly.

Well yes it would be silly if it were true. HTTP has compression and caching built in. You don't seem very familiar with HTTP at all.

Bi-directional communication is sort of essential for any network app. Also all significant actions behind those HTTP button clicks are done on the server side to there is no effective difference.

Of course there's a difference. The bi-directional communication happens with web applications when you are actually sending information back and forth. The bi-directional communication happens with X applications for each and every interaction you have with the application.

Re:HTTP deficiencies

[The Warlock]

You seriously think web browsers are "among the most complex programs ever written"?

The Mozilla suite is (measured in SLOC) what, the third largest package in Debian? The fourth? Either way, it's right up there.

Re:HTTP deficiencies

[jdeluise]

I think you're trolling here, and your signature and the several troll or flamebait downmods in your past seems to support it. I wonder if you have thought through your original proposal or your response carefully? First off, spawning HTTP processes to handle a new connection is not nearly as costly as spawning a process to handle an X application. Why? Because generally speaking an HTTP connection will handle a very discrete and limited amount of data. Most of the time, the request will be processed quickly and will not use a significant amount of memory. However, spawning an X application is different because you will be spawning an instance of an entire application (the stack and the heap) for every user that connects. Lets say 1000 users wanted to simultaneously use OpenOffice for example. What kind of machine could handle this load? Remember, the client contributes very little processor time and memory to running these applications remotely.

The biggest problem with X is that the application is not running on the client machine, it is only being viewed there. Because of this, much of the functionality that would expect is not present. For example, suppose you were using an X-based mail application. What would happen if you wanted to print an email? Where would you be printing to? It would not be the X server (ie. your client for those who are not familiar with the way X works), it would in fact be the server you are connected to! Can you think of any non-hack that would allow you to print to your printer on your machine? Do you think any of these hacks would be secure enough to use in practice?

Now say you were using an X-based word processor. Let's say you want to save your document so that you can close the program. You click the save button. Where are you going to save the document? I'm sorry to tell you but it would be the server you are connected to. Sure, this could be coupled with some kind of remote storage facility so that you could get access to your documents, but it's very much still a hack, and not everyone is interested in saving their work to remote storage. The only way around these problems are hacks that are not only insecure but also far more costly in terms of bandwidth and loss of functionality for the client and processor time, memory, and bandwidth for the server.

Besides the above problems, you are still paying a lot more in terms of bandwidth costs for every single interaction with the GUI. As more people use said application, the slower it will become for everyone. What if someone discovers a bug in an X application that causes it to hang with 100% CPU usage. This would hose every other user on the server instantly. Just imagine the DOS attacks that would result from your proposal???

I don't know if you are a troll, an X fanboy, or you just plain didn't think it through, but I would suggest in the future that you argue on matters that you actually know something about and have thought through a little more. Thanks for your time.

Re:HTTP deficiencies

[jdeluise]

Compare the HTTP architecture with X. You have a few significantly incompatable browsers that are among the most complex programs ever written. There is no steady definition of what these cesspools of code really are. For all that complexity it is remarkable how little they do!

I think you are confusing HTTP and HTML. I am quite certain that what makes web browsers complex is not the high-level transport protocol (HTTP) but the rendering of poorly written HTML. Nobody said HTML was the ideal situation for web applications, but don't blame HTTP for that...

Re:HTTP deficiencies

[jsebrech]

I think you are confusing HTTP and HTML. I am quite certain that what makes web browsers complex is not the high-level transport protocol (HTTP) but the rendering of poorly written HTML. Nobody said HTML was the ideal situation for web applications, but don't blame HTTP for that...

Agreed. A flash app that loads data (in XML format) from a web server across http is much easier to develop. Less bandwidth needed, better responsiveness, a lot more capability, and a shorter development time. Yahoo and google are catching on this, as demonstrated by yahoo maps and google finance.

Oh, and did you know that you can make flash apps using nothing but open source software?

Re:The state of "Web2.0" is...

[grizzlo]

Huh?

When was it difficult for end users to create web content?

IIRC, I used a browser that supported HTTP PUT way back in 1995. And even the most technology-illiterate people in my office were able to use FrontPage and Netscape Composer in the late 90's.

Oh, you want a free web-based site management tool? Nothing wrong with good ol' GeoCities.

True, the resulting sites didn't always look cool to the latte-drinking, tortoise-framed-glasses-and-black-turtleneck crowd, but the Internet would have been better off without those idiots, anyway.

Most of these suggested "Web 2.0 innovations" were really Web 1.0 innovations, and the rest were Internet 1.0 innovations.

Cross-platform

[wysiwia]

It's rather ironic that we're trying to get browsers to do what other application platforms have been able to do since the late 1970s. I sometimes wonder if the web browser, like the gopher client before it, should be dropped for something, well, a little less kludgy and arcane.

I know quite well why my boss fancies Web 2.0 because he hopes it will solve his cross-platform needs. Whatever business you do these days as soon as it gets a certain size you are faced with multiple platforms. My boss hates having different platforms but he couldn't avoid it so far. And my boss also likes to have it nice and beauty. So far none of what he tried satisfied him, even standardizing on Java for everything was enough. But I don't want to rant on Java now, I just want to tell you that my boss now thinks Web 2.0 is the solution. I on the other side know that Web 2.0 has its use for some kind of work (web of course) while Java had and will have its uses for other tasks as will have my own solution for the desktop (see http://wyoguide.sf.net/papers/Cross-platform.html) . But it just needs some time until the hype is over, until everything is sorted out. And of course until people realize what's their best and what's hype.

O. Wyss

Re:Cross-platform

[MightyMartian]

Java held a lot of promise, and certainly for those of us interested in writing platform-independent applications, it still stands as probably the best tool. However, for whatever reasons (and there are a few, both technically and, shall we see, politically), it has never blossomed in that area. I have used it a bit for a few cross-platform utilities, and it's actually not any worse than your average PHP or Perl script.

Re:Cross-platform

[wysiwia]

Java held a lot of promise ... and it's actually not any worse than your average PHP or Perl script.

Sure as you say, not any worse but also not any better. Java was hyped beyond any reason as probably Web 2.0 will be. Java just sees its hype gone and has to find its new fitting place as will Web 2.0 one day. The only difference this time is we know that this hyping will happen and may be prepared. I pity my boss since I can clearly envision not only multiple platforms but also multiple cross-platform solutions will soon become his responsibility.

As any carpenter uses a hammer for nails but a screwdriver for screws and neither a hammer nor a screwdriver for both, we all have to strive for multiple tools to achieve cross-platform solutions. There are lots of ways, some better some worse and everybody has to find the ones which suits him best. Of course if you ask me what I choose, it's

• Dojo toolkit for web clients
• PHP for the web server
• wxWidgets for the desktop

Yet again these are my personal favorites and others might choose completely different. But keep in mind what every you choose, choose cross-platform in any case.

O. Wyss

Or RadioMixTape.com

[sryx]

Radio Mix Tape is a new service that lets people make mix tapes, and swap them. Entirely out of the kind of free tracks that bands put on their website. And its starting to gain support from artists. Big ones too. On yeah and we now have fancy Blog Widgets (checkout this blog here
-Jason
P.S. Yes I own it, I made it, but we have a team working hard on our 1.0 version and I am extremely proud of it.

Need a patch!

[Green Poison]

Is the link of the in-depth review using Web 2.0? If yes, I need urgently a patch, as it is not working on my Firefox... Where can I find the bugzilla to post a new bug? When will be 2.1 released?

Argues like...

[amightywind]

Well yes it would be silly if it were true. HTTP has compression and caching built in. You don't seem very familiar with HTTP at all.

You argue like a North Korean arms negotiator - vigorously from a position of weakness.

Re:missed a couple of ajax gotchas

[ScottyH]

#1

It's actually not that bad, although I'm sure results vary. I played around with a reader awhile back (something everyone should try, it's an eye-opening experience...or ear-opening? whatever...) and it dealt with changing page contents quite easy, notifying the user that something had occurred and reading the new contents.

I know What it means.

[Akoma The Immortal]

Which community was quick at embracing the WEB when Al Gore created it?
The Adult industry..

Which community use the most of the WEB as we speak?
The Adult industry..

Which community has the most apeal to the common techy/nerdy crowd of today $lazy selfconciensious teannager?
The Meat Your Match Only For a Quick Fantasy/Laid and share it with the world ala MySpace, Hi5...

WEB 2.0 will be built on community based phenomenon. And guess what, the OSS crowd was doing it, was enjoying it WAY before mass media pickted it up.

WEB 2.0 is nothing new. Its just a term invented by "thinker" for the unwashed mass.

Just like "World Wide Web" came about.

Wash, Rince, Repeat..

Regards,

Akoma

Re:The state of "Web2.0" is...

[Serapth]

What I want to know is who the hell thought "making it easier for end users to create web content" was a good idea in the first place?!?!

Did we learn nothing for the last decades Geocities and AngelFire do it yourself websites? The end user that has difficulty with the technology of today probrably has nothing of any interest to say!

Re:it's for all the idiots out there

[fury88]

C'mon guys, it wasn't THAT bad! It was a joke!

Challenging the status quo

[amightywind]

I don't know if you are a troll, an X fanboy, or you just plain didn't think it through, but I would suggest in the future that you argue on matters that you actually know something about and have thought through a little more. Thanks for your time.

It is not trolling to express a serious point, even though it challenges your views. The original post suggested that the client server model used by tty programs is not conceptually different from web programs in a cleint server sense. My reply (modded up I might add) suggested that X also followed the same model, and offered a universe of capability over the broken, confused, shity web 2.0 "technologies" we see today. It is a valid and insightful observation. So the web programing fanboys came out of the woodwork to defend the disfunctional status quo. I read much about the minutae of HTTP extensions and justification of slow, uninteractive web pages and bloated frameworks. I don't believe that you can abstract concepts from diverse systems deeply enough to formulate a judgement. Perhaps you don't have experience with many. Get some before your start foaming at the mouth. If you don't like trolling maybe you should do less of it yourself. I hope you find happier reading elsewhere on the site. There is a Simpsons story today that you might like.

Re:Challenging the status quo

[jdeluise]

It is not trolling to express a serious point, even though it challenges your views.

You have not challenged my views. If anything, I have challenged your views. Your view seems to be very X-centric, that all web applications should use the X protocol simply because it's good at displaying remote applications (unfortunately that's all it's good for..displaying and accepting input, very slowly and yet it's missing several very important features). I am challenging your views because they are very misguided.

The original post suggested that the client server model used by tty programs is not conceptually different from web programs in a cleint server sense. My reply (modded up I might add) suggested that X also followed the same model, and offered a universe of capability over the broken, confused, shity web 2.0 "technologies" we see today.

Put simply, you are wrong. It does not offer a universe of capabilty over current technologies, and it's a step backwards in terms of functionality. The only thing it offers is a nice-looking GUI. Unfortunately not a functional one. For example, you cannot

• Print to your own printer
• Save files to your local machine
• Play video (ever tried to play video through a remote X application even over a high-speed connection? Forget about it)

If you decide to respond to this post, please start by telling me how the above list is a "universe of capability" over what we have now.

So the web programing fanboys came out of the woodwork to defend the disfunctional status quo.

Show me where I defended the status quo. You will look back and see I never did. I have only said that using X is even worse than the status quo.

I read much about the minutae of HTTP extensions and justification of slow, uninteractive web pages and bloated frameworks.

Once again, I never defended HTTP. However, it seems that you are confusing HTTP and HTML again. HTTP is certainly not perfect, but HTML is probably the worse offender here. As usual, you give no details to back up your claims

I don't believe that you can abstract concepts from diverse systems deeply enough to formulate a judgement. Perhaps you don't have experience with many. Get some before your start foaming at the mouth.

Why don't you back yourself up with something meaningful to say rather than simply insulting me? From all of your posts it seems that the only thing you are capable of is making baseless statements with little or no evidence to support them. Then, when you get backed into a wall you lash out with insults. You are subtle about it, but still nothing more than a troll.

Old news at Microsoft, IBM

[pesto]

Of course, Microsoft and IBM have had researchers and, indeed, research groups studying social computing since the mid-1990s.

• Microsoft Research Social Computing Group (formerly Virtual Worlds Group)
• Microsoft Research Collaborative and Multimedia Systems Group
• Microsoft Research Community Technologies Group (a more recent creation)
• IBM Research Social Computing Group

They've known for at least a decade that these were important areas to study. TFA should know better.

2.0 already?

[nuzak]

Dammit, and I just finished downloading Web 1.9!

Anyone got a torrent?

Do as I say, not as I do

[Gorshkov]

"Web 2.0" ..... hmmmmm ......

Is that the brand new,shiny piece of crap he's using to host his blog that insists that IT knows how wide the article shold be instead of adjusting itself to the size of my browser window?

Until the pontificating wanker can show even basic web design competence, I don't think I'm going to bother reading the article.