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"

[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"

[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"

[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.

Summary of the article summary

[MustardMan]

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

Um...

[Anonymous Coward]

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

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)

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.

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.

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?

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: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.

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: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!

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.