DITA - week five: Web 2.0 (Part One: exactly what the hell is Web 2.0?)

I like to think I'm fairly "with it" when it comes to the Web. Mention "Web 2.0" technologies to me and I'll probably say, "hmmm" and nod sagely. But if you held a gun to my head and demanded that I explain what Web 2.0 is, I'd probably mumble something like, "erm, Facebook, um, social media, and ah, something about blogs, maybe?" (I'd probably also ask if the gun was really necessary for the conversation.)

So, what exactly is Web 2.0? Well, it doesn't help that there is no standard, agreed upon definition of the term - which means that everyone wants to have a go at defining it. Tim O'Reilly, who is closely associated with the term thanks to a conference in 2004, describes it thus:


Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform. Chief among those rules is this: Build applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them.

Clear on that? Yeah, me neither. Let's see if we can try this again (although we will return to a couple of points in O'Reilly's definition) ...

A simple way of defining and thinking about Web 2.0 is as a series of internet services where users find it just as easy to create and publish their own content as to read other people's content. In other words, we have reached the point where technologies have become cheap enough, accessible enough, and easy enough to use that you don't need to be an internet guru to put content up on the Web. In fact, I'm doing it right here, right now, for free, with this humble blog.

There's certainly no way I could have been doing this when I first started using the Web in earnest back in 1998. This has led some to describe Web 1.0 as the "read-only" Web, with most users searching for and consuming content, but (by and large) not creating it themselves - a rather passive experience. Taking the analogy further, Web 2.0 could be described as the "read/write" Web, with users continuing to search for content, but now also creating it themselves - a much more active and interactive experience. (I'm trying so very hard not to use the word prosumer here!) Tim Berners-Lee however, none other than the inventor of the Web, takes exception to this description - he claims that the Web was always intended to be "read/write", so he views the term Web 2.0 as just a piece of jargon.

Nonetheless, we reached a point somewhere around 2005/2006 that it became just as easy for us to create/publish content on the Web as to read other people's content. (It's interesting to note that no new technology was developed in order for this change to happen - as I said above it's only because existing technologies have become cheaper and easier to use.) This has led us to some pretty interesting developments:

• Collaboration: As well as being incredibly easy now for people to create and publish their own content online, it's just as easy for people to comment on each other's content, and to interact and collaborate with each other. Blogs and blog comments are a very simple example of this. 
• Creation of online "social spaces": Taking the idea of collaboration/interaction further has led people to create virtual online communities and social spaces, where users can interact and share ideas, photos, videos, jokes ... well, the list of what people can share is virtually endless these days. Social networking sites such as Facebook are an example of this. (This takes us back to O'Reilly's quote above about "applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them." In other words, what he meant was that applications like Facebook get better/more interesting the more people use them. You could go and sign up for Friendster, but it wouldn't be a very interesting experience if your network of friends is over on Facebook.)
• Dynamic content: Because there are now so many of us constantly creating and publishing new content online, the content on Web 2.0 sites isn't static, but is instead dynamic - constantly changing. This is referred to as the "flow internet", and requires tools such as RSS to manage effectively without feeling like you're drowning in information.
• Internet as platform: Once upon a time, computers were platforms, and a user's experience would differ significantly depending on what platform they were using (for example, Mac versus Windows). Today, computers are becoming our portals onto the internet - and it is the internet itself which is the platform everything operates on (this again takes us back to the O'Reilly quote - he explicitly mentions "the internet as platform" as part of Web 2.0). More and more of our data, and even the applications we use, is being stored on the internet, and not on our computer's hard-drives. 

Looking through this list, the benefits of Web 2.0 are no doubt apparent, such as the ability to share and exchange information like never before, to connect and interact with people the world over, and the democratisation of many kinds of discourse. Of course, I'm sure a number of problems and issues have occurred to you too, such as the trivialisation of discourse, loss of privacy, and a sense of drowning in an ever-expanding sea of "updates".

One thing's for sure though: we're all becoming prosumers now, producing and consuming more and more content - the floodgates have opened, and there's no going back.