Using the Tools of Web 2.0 for Business
There has been talk lately of Web 2.0. What is meant by this? Even those that attended the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco recently couldn't decide. It is a combination of a return of optimism about the value of the Internet and, Lo and Behold, the Internet actually returning value.
Many of us never lost faith in this; We really lost faith in people's ability to make a living off the value of the Internet. The value itself was never in question. This has changed a bit with the second coming: Google, Yahoo, AOL, EBay, Paypal and more are showing steady increases in value, revenue, and stability and another generation of web tools is emerging. Is the maturing of the internet? Not really. Really, it is getting the Internet out of diapers and past teething. Really the crying infant is now learning to speak, walk, and feed itself.
The tools of Web 2.0 are getting to be more like desktop applications, with the benefit of the central, always accessible location: The Internet. This has become possible because access to the Internet is now faster for most users, and the advent of CSS1 and CSS2, Ajax, and the increasing quality and reliability of open source, server-side tools and languages like MySQL, PERL, PHP, Ruby, and Apache. The result is a much more usable web with much more powerful interfaces via really great browsers like Apple's Safari, and the open source powerhouse Firefox.
This alphabet soup means little or nothing to the user. This is as it should be. We shouldn't have to be tech savvy to use these tools. Even the most technical people really don't need complicated things to stand in the way of getting things done. Yet we are only partway down the path. As everyone knows, software doesn't really reach maturity until version 4.1 or 5.1. We're still at Web 2.0.
The products of Web 2.0 are blogs, wikis, web applications like group management, online accounting and banking, online payment and invoicing, online learning and collaboration. The blogs and wikis actually carry useful information, a sense of loyalty and engagement, and a method of organization.
The best example of a simple tool, the Wiki, creating a foundation for a phenomenal value, is Wikipedia. This online encyclopedia is almost beyond belief in it's depth, richness, sense of purpose, and it's collaborative nature. It is a volume of information about the world that isn't static. It truly reflects and enhances our collective change and growth of knowledge in an immediate way. As a hurricane rips the Gulf Coast, our knowledge of hurricanes grows, and Wikipedia grows with it. As people become newsmakers, then history makers, Wikipedia documents it all. It moves backwards into history and forward into our future in near-real time. And the content is very good. I think Wikipedia is the most important benchmark of the power of the Internet. And it is built on a simple foundation at http://www.wikipedia.com
Blogs have multiplied into the millions. But most of them have been created and promptly forgotten or ignored by their creators. Some have become as read and respected as a major newspaper, some have languished in obscurity. Some report live from war zones but most report live from ordinary people's ordinary lives in banal living rooms, bedrooms, and cafes. Some are live-to-the-world baby books recording every little step towards personhood, every photo of food-on-the-face, first tooth, first steps that each of us have had, but that still are so remarkable and delightful despite the billions of times it has occurred, in almost precisely the same way, all along. Others are battles with depression, or hormones, or acne. It goes to show the power of words well written, and the weakness of ideas poorly conceived or expressed.
The two best ways I've found to discover the world of blogs are:
a) Scrolling through http://del.icio.us/ ...and check out that clever domain name! Anyway, just go there and scroll until you see something that intrigues you.
b) Go to Google's Blog Search and use it just like regular Google.
With my Safari browser, I just command-click each link and it opens in a new tab, then I continue scrolling and command-clicking. Then I command-W the Delicious or Google results page to close it, and the next tab pops up. As I finish looking at each blog, I command-W to view the next one. It's great!
In the nextish post, I'm going to point to some other web applications... from contact managers to word processors... all you need is your browser.
Many of us never lost faith in this; We really lost faith in people's ability to make a living off the value of the Internet. The value itself was never in question. This has changed a bit with the second coming: Google, Yahoo, AOL, EBay, Paypal and more are showing steady increases in value, revenue, and stability and another generation of web tools is emerging. Is the maturing of the internet? Not really. Really, it is getting the Internet out of diapers and past teething. Really the crying infant is now learning to speak, walk, and feed itself.
The tools of Web 2.0 are getting to be more like desktop applications, with the benefit of the central, always accessible location: The Internet. This has become possible because access to the Internet is now faster for most users, and the advent of CSS1 and CSS2, Ajax, and the increasing quality and reliability of open source, server-side tools and languages like MySQL, PERL, PHP, Ruby, and Apache. The result is a much more usable web with much more powerful interfaces via really great browsers like Apple's Safari, and the open source powerhouse Firefox.
This alphabet soup means little or nothing to the user. This is as it should be. We shouldn't have to be tech savvy to use these tools. Even the most technical people really don't need complicated things to stand in the way of getting things done. Yet we are only partway down the path. As everyone knows, software doesn't really reach maturity until version 4.1 or 5.1. We're still at Web 2.0.
The products of Web 2.0 are blogs, wikis, web applications like group management, online accounting and banking, online payment and invoicing, online learning and collaboration. The blogs and wikis actually carry useful information, a sense of loyalty and engagement, and a method of organization.
The best example of a simple tool, the Wiki, creating a foundation for a phenomenal value, is Wikipedia. This online encyclopedia is almost beyond belief in it's depth, richness, sense of purpose, and it's collaborative nature. It is a volume of information about the world that isn't static. It truly reflects and enhances our collective change and growth of knowledge in an immediate way. As a hurricane rips the Gulf Coast, our knowledge of hurricanes grows, and Wikipedia grows with it. As people become newsmakers, then history makers, Wikipedia documents it all. It moves backwards into history and forward into our future in near-real time. And the content is very good. I think Wikipedia is the most important benchmark of the power of the Internet. And it is built on a simple foundation at http://www.wikipedia.com
Blogs have multiplied into the millions. But most of them have been created and promptly forgotten or ignored by their creators. Some have become as read and respected as a major newspaper, some have languished in obscurity. Some report live from war zones but most report live from ordinary people's ordinary lives in banal living rooms, bedrooms, and cafes. Some are live-to-the-world baby books recording every little step towards personhood, every photo of food-on-the-face, first tooth, first steps that each of us have had, but that still are so remarkable and delightful despite the billions of times it has occurred, in almost precisely the same way, all along. Others are battles with depression, or hormones, or acne. It goes to show the power of words well written, and the weakness of ideas poorly conceived or expressed.
The two best ways I've found to discover the world of blogs are:
a) Scrolling through http://del.icio.us/ ...and check out that clever domain name! Anyway, just go there and scroll until you see something that intrigues you.
b) Go to Google's Blog Search and use it just like regular Google.
With my Safari browser, I just command-click each link and it opens in a new tab, then I continue scrolling and command-clicking. Then I command-W the Delicious or Google results page to close it, and the next tab pops up. As I finish looking at each blog, I command-W to view the next one. It's great!
In the nextish post, I'm going to point to some other web applications... from contact managers to word processors... all you need is your browser.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home