Drift Reality > Washington, DC > Putting Web 2.0 in Perspective Part 2

Defining Web 2.0

Whereas Kelly is often thought of as the lyrical voice of Web 2.0, it is Tim O'Reilly who has taken a more pragmatic approach to its development and is credited for coining the phrase Web 2.0 (and subsequently claiming the term as his possession). His white paper, What is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software, is considered one of the more defining explanations of Web 2.0 and not surprisingly focuses on the technological and market aspects of the Web’s newest trends.

According to O'Reilly, Web 2.0 is a 'gravitational core' of standards and all prominent sites are located at 'varying distances from the core.' Web 2.0 applications share six fundamental characteristics:

• The Web as Platform
• Harnessing Collective Intelligence
• Data is the Next Intel Inside
• End of the Software Release Cycle
• Lightweight Programming Models
• Software Above the Level of a Single Device

In order to define Web 2.0, he offers a series of the “old” vs. the “new” to help differentiate between 1.0 and 2.0. His first comparison of Web 1.0 and 2.0 relates to what he terms “standard bearers,” or Netscape and Google. According to O'Reilly, Netscape intended to use the dominance of its Web browser to corner the market on Web server products, similar to what Microsoft did with the operating system and software applications. "In the end,” he writes, “both web browsers and web servers turned out to be commodities, and value moved ‘up the stack’ to services delivered over the web platform." According to O'Reilly, Google is fundamentally different from Netscape in that it is delivered as a service instead of a product, and its key value is its data.

Web 2.0 should not be preoccupied with defining itself in contrast to 1.0

O'Reilly's metaphor of value moving up a stack seems to contradict the notion of the “old” vs. the “new.” The concept of a stack implies a layered relationship between different technologies. In O'Reilly's own words, "Google happens in the space between browser and search engine and destination content server, as an enabler or middleman between the user and his or her online experience." In this statement, O'Reilly acknowledges that Google plays a role in a broader media process that also integrates the Web browser. Without Google, the online experience may not be as dynamic, yet without the Web browser, the online experience would be impossible. Comparing the business practices of Google and Netscape is one thing; comparing their products, as landmark technologies that are representative of their respective eras, seems counterintuitive. For two landmark technologies to truly be compared and contrasted there should be something intrinsically similar about them. And from what I can tell, these two technologies don’t fit that bill.

What’s more, categorizing earlier Web technologies as ‘Web 1.0’ and new Web technologies as ‘Web 2.0’ ignores the manner in which old technologies mesh with new. It also marginalizes much of the powerful thinking from onlookers, activists, engineers and developers who helped to shape the Internet that we have and use today. Finally, defining Web 2.0 as a revolutionary phase in the development of the Internet fails to acknowledge that this new dawn in the history of the Web is really a part of a cycle. Indeed, there are certain cyclical patterns underlying the development of technologies that we easily miss when we place the focus on the recent or present.

For instance, O'Reilly's claim that the foremost tenet of Web 2.0 is that the “Web becomes a platform should resound with those familiar with the history of the computer.” As Haddon (1998) explains, the early visions for the computer were shaped in a mainframe paradigm, in which one of the foremost visions was a centralized mainframe providing various machine-driven services that were then passed to the user through various telecommunications channels. Ultimately, this model was replaced by the personal computer running local applications. Now, in an ironic twist of fate, this old vision for the mainframe resonates with the current vision of 'Web 2.0.'

Similarly, components of Web 2.0, or what makes Web 2.0 different from Web 1.0, are not necessarily new, if you take a closer look at the Web’s history. For instance, O'Reilly claims that Web 2.0 harnesses ‘collective intelligence.’ Those familiar with the Web’s past would know that this ‘collective intelligence’ has accompanied the Internet since its inception, symbolized most evidently via the open source movement, which has helped shape the Web since its birth, as well as through early communities, such as the WELL. They would also know recognize that excessive optimism in the Web’s collaborative nature often overshadows its potential negative consequences, which we’ve seen recently with spamming, cyber-stalking, flaming and the over-commercialization of Web communities.

To take a more recent example, a recent edition of the Economist (2006) published a great article on the massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) Second Life, referred to as "the best example of Web 2.0" because of its focus on user-generated content and "celebration of creativity." While reading the article I was struck by the resemblance between the development of MMORPGs and that of multi-user domains (MUDs), which is typically recognized as its progenitor. What initially began as an action-oriented text-based role-playing game eventually began to take on a more social form, exemplified by Tiny-MUD, developed by Jim Aspnes at Carnegie Mellon University, and provided users with the ability to code and create new objects and landscapes. Given that, are the denizens of the Web 2.0 MMORPG Second Life somehow more creative than the denizens of the Web 1.0 Tiny-MUD? The question (which I hope is rhetorical) begs yet another: why are MUDs not mentioned when we talk about Web 2.0 MMORPGs, such as Second Life? Are there not things we can learn by looking back to explore the social aspects of MUDs? Take for example, academic Sherry Turkle, who is well known for her research in the social impact of MUDs. Referring to Second Life as Web 2.0, while discounting the MUD as 'Web 1.0,' ignores the potential applications of her work on the new technology, which would be a major mistake.

Next: Re-focusing on the social