Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Web 2.0? How do I upgrade?

A new buzzword going around is "Web 2.0". I know that if you are reading this and have not heard of Web 2.0 you are probably wondering about things like...
  • Why do I care? (a: You may not!)
  • What was Web 1.0?
  • Why the change?
  • What difference does it make to me? (a: maybe nothing)
  • How do I upgrade?
I am not sure I can answer those questions without getting too "Geek" but here is a shot.

In an article called "What is Web 2.0", they talk about the differences. Some of the differences are because technology has enabled the change, most, however are just reapplication of existing technology.

The best definition I have found from that article is "...that they have embraced the power of the web to harness collective intelligence..."

Examples of this new thought are Wikipedia, Flikr, Frappr! and even this Blogger blog that I am typing into. Thanks to the fact that Amazon allows its customers to review items it ranks in the Web 2.0 category.

What does this have to do with me? You? I am actually not sure. I have been impacted by this slow revolution as you can see here. I also need to change the way I think about things like the web and how to get more into the Web 2.0 mindset. How will it affect you? I don't know that either. Will you start a blog? Have you started a blog? Do you read the reviews at Amazon before you buy? Do you look things up on Wikipedia rather than elsewhere? Will you start storing you photos online to share with others at a place like Flikr?

What I do see from this is that our disconnected internet driven society is looking for connections and commonalities within it's rather large (but extremely small in many ways) world.

P.S. - Just to give you an idea of the scope of this, as I was typing this blog, I had the signup page for this site up. During that whole time, I was watching updated blog's click by at around 1/second (maybe not quite that fast). They are tagging times 1 hour behind my update!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Joel you Geek! Thanks man for this post. I'm not sure I completely understand the whole 2.0 deal, but at least I will sound smarter. Also, good insight on the "connection" factor.