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Web 2.0: Bubble 2.0?

What if this new version of the Web (i.e., 2.0) is a bubble that's waiting to burst?

Posted by Bill French on 10/26/2007 01:35 AM

Comments (8)

8 Comments on Web 2.0: Bubble 2.0?

OCT

2007

Interesting article Bill, thanks.

Bill,

Interesting article. I guess no one really knows at this point how much is fad and how much is here to stay concerning this topic. I think that there is one major component that will give 2.0 longevity...that is participation. We ALL want to be a part of community and have our voices be heard. This is no different in business.

but....time will tell!

Chris:

"_We ALL want to be a part of community and have our voices be heard._"

Yes, this has been an important dimension of business from the beginning of, well, business on planet earth. And there have been lots of "community-based" systems on the Web. Even before the Internet there were private networks built to embrace communities. But none of them are around now, and I predict similar outcomes concerning the current swath of "social networking" systems.

Don't get me wrong - I believe the attributes of Web 2.0 is an important milestone on the road to better communication ad smarter computing in general. However, I think we're munging the idea of Web 2.0 (an increased capacity to arbitrate via machines using XML) with esoteric aspects of new social interaction features. FaceBook provides some very powerful and useful mechanisms for better interpresonal integration, but these are simply implementation details that will eventually fade or be trumped for something even better.

FaceBook is getting a valuation [today] of $15b (that's billion) - 4.5 times that of YouTube? This is bubbleicious indeed. Reminds me of precisely what happened in Bubble 1.0 (er, Web 1.0). FaceBook is a bit different though - it's more like a platform than YouTube was (or is). But still - $15 Billion and virtually no means of paying its bills? I smell a big pile of social doo doo.

"Its a fad." and "Why would anyone use that." each of those statements were made about every major communication invention since the telephone.

Web 2.0 is the next wave of internet communications because it allows people a place to be heard. It is there own virtual 15 minutes of fame.

Henry:

"Its a fad." and "Why would anyone use that." each of those statements were made about every major communication invention since the telephone.

No disagreement here - and to be clear, my comments are not intended to be a poor reflection on the implementation details of Web 2.0-like things that create better communication. The MyST Platform was created in 2002 to take advantage of emerging XML standards that most Web 2.0 infrastructures are based upon, so I'm a huge proponent of Web 2.0.

However, I see a new bubble that could be every bit as economically dibilitating as Bubble 1.0 was in 2000. When Bubble 1.0 burst, the Internet did not suddenly become worthless or in any way reflect an outgoing "fad". Instead, certain companies whose valuations were based on unrealized promisses, were reassessed in terms of true(er) business valuations based on actual contributions to the economy rather than anticipated but unrealized financial achievments. This had nothing to do with fads - it was simply a case of markets making adjustments.

Web 2.0 is the next wave of internet communications because it allows people a place to be heard. It is there own virtual 15 minutes of fame.

I'd have to say it's the current wave, not the next one. ;-) People have had lots of places and technologies to be heard on the Web and for more than a decade. How is Web 2.0 any different?

MAR

2008

I am web architect, I have been doing web programming work for about 12 years, mostly as long as anyone really. Even during 1999 and 2000 we still did not know what we were doing, we did not have the technology support and the tools to create the plumbing to make things work. Most of us were still stuck with nasty menu's and frame sets even in 2000. JavaScript support on browsers in 1999 was not ubiquitous yet, so we could not script anything (this rich text area box would not have flown back then) the best most advanced applications still had to support IE4.01 at the least. Which had a very fuzzy implementation of CSS (nasty-nasty-nasty). And even if the browsers where great all this stuff was new.

And don't forget we did not even really have XML, just the working draft specification.

Javascript support had just reached the DOM scripting level, before that it was pretty touch and go. The microsoft-centric developers where still using VBScript client-side breaking everything.

So when a geek tells you web 2.0, he means that a new era of the web is here. He means that he is not using some messed up CGI/API interface to get to his data(he is using asp.net in his flavour of choice and loving it/or rocking the open PHP with All its cool unit testing software). He is not initiating a DCOM attempt to access external resouces, but is using a web service.

What he means, is what he wanted to do before, he can do now, without breaking 50% of the current clients user experience.

Gareth:

I agree with you - this post was intended to solicit exactly the kind of response you provided. However, while there are far more stable ways of building web apps today, most "Web 2.0" applications are extremely brittle because there are so few architects that are (a) invited to guide good implementers and (b) in significant quantity to go around to all the Web 2.0 startups. ;-)

Unfortunately, the age of snap-together-hack-it-up web services and easy-to-grasp scripting languages has created a new plague - programmers that can easily simulate a good idea (and attract lots of money) without the benefit of any architectural planning.

MAR

2008

Wow, well you said it, and I think hit the nail on the head. I think web guys forget just how dangerous to the user experience every piece of client side script is. Every time you throw javascript on your page your run the risk of blowing things up.

But think about the old javascript mouseOver menus, your cursor passed the hot spot and the background of the menu changed. All javascript. Today though we have built-in CSS support, so our anchor tag has a hover pseudo-element on it, allowing the browser to replace the background image. And let me tell you, the browser stands a much better chance of implementing that functionality "error-free" then I do.

None of this will stop me from scripting, because my User Community deserves the most advanced, most tool packed and stable Human(user) Experience that I can make. But every time I replace a drop down with a javascript widget I wonder, "how many of my users still don't have javascript enabled", followed directly by, "I wish I had a Mac and a Linux box to test this on".

Bill I have read some of your other post and seem you are quite knowledgable, would you be intested in commenting on http://activerain.com/blogsview/422256/-X-HTML-Use a blog post of mine, I am interested in your input.

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