If you are involved or have an interest in software or web development you have most likely heard mention of Web 2.0. I started hearing about Web 2.0 earlier in the year and to be honest I don’t have much of a feel for what it is about just yet, apart from it being the next big thing happening to the Web.
Earlier this month the Web 2.0 Conference 2005 was held in San Francisco and from what I’ve read so far it would have been a great conference to attend. I’ve just finished reading a brief wrap up of the conference titled The Future Of The Web over at Information Week. Here are a few quotes I found interesting.
Jeff Weiner, senior VP of search and marketplace at Yahoo acknowledges that the Web 2.0 concept, much discussed of late, has been overhyped. But, he adds, there’s something to it.
If you take O’Reilly’s analysis at face value, the “Web 2.0” is about lots of things that client-server computing, or even the Internet, for the most part, hasn’t been. Instead of pages that load, it’s about sites that feel like software. Instead of software that runs in a browser or on a cell phone, it’s about apps that span devices. Instead of being all about content from Web producers, it’s about content being produced by people everywhere: blogs, wikis, digital photos. Web 2.0 is about viral marketing instead of advertising, though that sounds suspiciously like 1999. And it’s about the power of networks and the ability to deliver better results as more people use a service (think Google’s search, Amazon .com’s ratings, or Technorati’s blog commons).
Aaron Ricadela’s take on a 12-page treatise by Tim O’Reilly on what version 2.0 of the Web really means.
It’s either the start of something cool–or Internet Bubble 2.0. Maybe it’s a bit of both. Thomas Claburn
The article is well worth reading. It will be interesting to follow Web 2.0’s progress and see where Surfulater fits into it.