Nov
04
2007
Web 2.0! Are We All Drunk off the New Media Kool-Aid?
By: nicole_guerraFiled in: Technology, Business & the Economy
As the articles rush in through RSS feeds and products are marketed to us by Google Adsense and Amazon, anyone remotely touched by technology has seemingly jumped quite enthusiastically onto the web 2.0 bandwagon.
Established blogger, maketing strategist, and early proponent of the web 2.0 movement, Steve Rubel, comments at length about the fandom turned exagerrated fan-fiction coalescing around new media. Not surprisingly, Rubel says all the fuss is due to, you guessed it- money.
As we feverishly blog and podcast, is the hype so many are perpetuating, including us at gnovis, similar to the dot com hysteria of the late '90s?
In reality, what is the true revolutionary power of the Web 2.0 movement? And more importantly, will its potential be harnessed for any meaningful purposes beyond economic gain?
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Submitted by nicole_guerra on Sun, 11/04/2007 - 22:39.
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bubbles and revolutions
The first thought that comes to mind for me is that your first question (is this another dot-com bubble?) and your second (what is the revolutionary power of Web 2.0?) deserve two completely separate answers.
Rubel's posts (he posted originally on Oct 29th, with a follow up post today) make a pretty compelling case for his answer to the first question -- the Web 2.0 craze has striking similarities to the dot-com bubble and, in time, it may turn out that the economic bubble of Web 2.0 bursts in much the same way.
However, this does not mean that the Web 2.0 movement is not revolutionary, any more than the ultimate bursting of the dot-com bubble means that the dot-com craze was not revolutionary... it was, quite obviously.
Put differently... when all of these Web 2.0 startups begin to crash, which many probably will, will that mean Wikipedia's impact on the way we gather knowledge -- even the way we think about knowledge rights -- be any less revolutionary? Will the impact of social networking sites on the way we, uh, socially network be any less revolutionary? Will the way XML/RSS has decentralized news consumption no longer be considered revolutionary?
My point, I guess, is that we are living the revolution of Web 2.0, and we have been for quite some time... and now that the revolution has become mainstream everybody is scrambling to turn it into profit.
[It's also quite ironic that we're critiquing the revolutionary potency of Web 2.0 by discussing it on a blog, in reference to another blog. It's so meta.]
Web 2.0 is bad? Well, those in Silicon Valley might think so...
Here's another interesting angle to throw into the debate. Apparently, the big Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins has decided to stop investing in Web 2.0 start-ups. Could this be the beginning of the end for Web 2.0? Doubtful.
Article: In Case You Missed It, Web 2.0 is Bad Now
"She's so Meta"
Sorry, compulsory Of Montreal song lyric.
Web 2.0 is bad? That's ridiculous. As Brad noted, it has certainly dramatically altered how end users access information. But I think the article Vitak linked and Steve Rubel's comments simply show that like many points of marked technological progress, Web 2.0 was perhaps blown up to be more revolutionary than it truly is. At least in practice.
All the gushy feel good talk of the early internet days has obviously fallen totally flat. It was thought that the digital divide would be cured by two years ago... Come. On.
The fact is, this country hasn't invested the proper public funds into these public issues and what should be considered public utilities. No technological innovation will change that.
Yes, wikipedia and RSS, etc have democratized and decentralized information, but to what extent? And for whom?
I'm a little tired of hearing how every new technology is the panacea to cure all of our social problems and the whole "sky is the limit" rhetoric. It's been said about radio, television, internet, etc etc. It's just not true.
To quote Edward R. Murrow on television:
There is definitely a limit and it's based in the market. Such companies retracting from investment strategies may well be the death toll in way. Of course we'll still have YouTube.
Nicole K. Guerra