Intro to Digital Age

The fundamental premise of The Cluetrain Manifesto, Locke claimed, was that “companies have been blind to the sea of change the Internet represents.”  Some companies, though, are beginning to change their strategies – from the inside out.  According to Levine, Locke, Searls, and Weinberg, the web is a “global set of conversations.”  Web 2.0 is allowing conversations to take place between people and machines, businesses and customers, etc.  Web 2.0 allows access to information and ideas, cooperation and connection with other people, entrance to communities, and world-wide broadcast.  The Cluetrain Manifestodemonstrates how quickly technology changes the world and describes what Web 2.0 is all about.  In the book the authors claim, “The memo is dead.  Long live e-mail.”  Email is a popular and powerful communication vehicle, but even in the short time since the book was published (2001), another communication tool has grown in popularity – SMS messaging.  Text messages may soon replace e-mail for instant communication.  Today’s technology has shown the importance of conversation in our lives.  The tools of Web 2.0 have made communication faster, able to reach more people than before, and bridged gaps.  An example of this is the way blogging has opened the lines of communication between businesses and customers. 

The authors claimed that the public desires corporate webpages to have a human feel.  Web 2.0 allows corporations to create sites that give a voice to both the corporation and its customers through tools such as blogs, user-created pictures, podcasts, and more.  It is a two-way medium in which people are both readers and writers.  The blog Squidoo explains that social software, a main characteristic of Web 2.0, allows for collaboration between two or more people.  According to the post, some people may even argue that user participation is what is driving Web 2.0 rather than the latest tools and software.  I think it’s a combination of the two, but user participation is definitely a driving force.  I agree with the authors that people desire to have a voice and participate.

Some businesses are based on the concept of Web 2.0.  Google, Yahoo, Amazon, and eBay were original Web 2.0 companies.  Others that have joined them include Flickr, Del.icio.us, Digg, and YouTube.  Large corporations such as GMhave seen the benefits of blogging and other Web 2.0 tools.  One area that I think could benefit from Web 2.0 applications is corporate social responsibility.  This is a relatively new term, but one that is catching on in the corporate world.  It is similar to the concept of Web 2.0 in that people want corporations to be open and honest.  They desire a human feel in websites and want companies to hear what they have to say about issues important to them.  Corporations feel the pressure to be socially responsible, but are not always clear in communicating their practices.  I think the incorporation of blogs and interactive sites that allow for collaboration between users and businesses would lead to greater awareness of socially responsible business practices and a feeling of participation among the public.  For example, Starbucks is fairly well-known for its socially responsible business practices.  They provide information on brochures, in newsletters, and on products like water bottles and coffee cups.  The company’s website provides further information, but lacks interactive applications.  They report the activities they are involved in with communities, but stop short of telling you how you can get involved in your specific community or letting you contribute to the conversation.  A site that allows users to contribute stories, pictures, video, etc. would give the public a voice in the conversation - a fundamental component of Web 2.0.

It’s not as simple as it sounds.  Tim O’Reilly described the concept as a set of principles forming a platform that connects devices.  To him, it is a mishmash of tools and sites based on collaboration and participation of both people and machines.  The basic principles are open source sharing (because the more people use a service, the better it gets), collective intelligence (key to competitive advantage), data-driven applications, reaching out to the entire web (include the long tail), hackability and remixability, software as a service, and integration of internet services across devices from PCs to mobile phones and beyond.  O’Reilly compared Netscape to Google as examples of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 companies.  Unlike Netscape, Google delivered a service that was never sold or packaged.  Google was a “massively scalable collection of commodity PCs running open source operating systems plus homegrown applications and utilities.” A major concept in Web 2.0 is the “architecture of participation” that allows users to become participants in an open source environment.  This free sharing of ideas leads to better service and a competitive advantage to companies that embrace it.  In the era of Web 2.0, companies must be willing to cooperate rather than control.

There are other definitions of Web 2.0 that make the term even more confusing.  According to Paul Boutin in his article Web 2.0: The new Internet “boom” Does Not Live up to its Name, web developers use the term to refer to the software and languages used to build collaborative websites.  These tools define Web 2.0 because they are “free, easy to master, and easy to interconnect.”  Boutin went on to say that Web 2.0 has also allowed people to make money by funding a “bring-your-own-content site” such as Dodgeball and Digg.  He argued that the term is being used for things that are not really Web 2.0, but are seen as the latest cool, new, or undiscovered thing.  He sees Web 2.0 as simply a technology upgrade “that finally does what they’d said version 1.0 would do.”

I think Web 2.0 is a combination of many things, including open source sharing, cooperation, remixability, integration, and service.  I don’t necessarily see it as the new Internet “boom” or “bubble” that is in danger of bursting like the first.  I see it as the evolution of the Internet.  This is the way the world is changing.  We rely on the Internet for an increasing number of things from local search to entertainment.  Businesses are becoming more transparent in their communication with the public, and the public wants to be able to contribute.  Web 2.0 is based on collaboration.  To me, it is a natural progression that will continue to grow and change with time rather than grow and simply bust.  It may seem “hyped”, but in the basic sense, Web 2.0 is simply the latest phase of growth for the Internet.