Take the Red Pill: We Have No True Web 2.0

The other night, my husband asked me a question I had no answer for: when we've moved on to whatever Web 3.0 is going to be, what will be left of Web 2.0? There are carryovers from the 1.0 Bubble, but when you think about it, the Web itself is 1.0. And Tim Berners-Lee himself has argued that we can't delineate Web 2.0 since so much of the technology has existed since the beginning of the Web.

Everyone has tried to pin down what Web 2.0 is, with little success. Social networking? We had IRC and BBSs before half of the Web 2.0 users were probably even born. Web 1.0 brought us online chat and forums and social networking sites focused on specific topic areas and bringing users together. The seeds of Software as a Service were laid with web-based email from Yahoo and Hotmail, and Instant Messenger services were right alongside it.

So what else can be argued? The democratization of the Web? With all the user-generated content out there, and all the blogs (which pre-date Web 2.0 as well), we may be free to choose our own content to read, but there is so much of it, we follow like sheep to whatever we are told to use. We choose what services to use, what blogs to read, what sites to visit, and what apps to install based on a perceived wisdom of the crowd, but the crowd is taking its lead from the A-listers and early adopters.

This morning I was talking to Ben Golub of RSSmeme and Aaron Newman of Techrigy at the Rochester Open Coffee Club about FriendFeed, and both were amused when I repeated (probably almost obsessively) that I detest FriendFeed. I may have even used the word hate. I use it because it's a necessary evil in this job, but I don't think I'll ever like it, even if Duncan Riley did go over to the Dark Side. There is no more democracy there than there is anywhere else; it's the new Techmeme. An informal survey on FriendFeed had predictable results. Techmeme is ruled by TechCrunch; FriendFeed is ruled by Robert Scoble and Louis Gray. And sure enough, in the number of apps that have gained popularity recently, FriendFeed is one that both Robert Scoble and Louis Gray have hyped a great deal. So many people in the early adopter crowd are dependent on keeping up with not only what's popular, but also what's being discussed on those popular sites, and as a result, are dragged, possibly kicking and screaming, and regardless of whether they feel it's really worth the time and energy.

So while tech has developed, it hasn't really changed. While more people are trying to add their voices, it's still an aristocracy that decides what voices are heard and what developments are recognized. The rulers may change, but for the most part, Web 2.0 has had no revolution. I'd like to change that a little bit; take the red pill with me, and leave me a comment listing one blog I'm not aware of, one app I've never seen, one person whose name I've never heard that's missing out on some deserved recognition in the web space.