[Sigia-l] Web 2.0 99% bad

[Stew Dean]

On 15/05/07, James Aylett <james.aylett at tangozebra.com> wrote:
> Ziya Oz wrote:
>
> > But what's further interesting to me is the significance of this: do
> > we just give up or do we design tools/functions that encourage
> > further user contribution/participation? Do we see Web 2.0 as a fad
> > or an opportunity to bolster social aspects software/systems?
>
> My personal feeling is that it will take a long time for the majority (or even a significantly larger >minority) of people to want to contribute content to the web. It will probably require a fairly major >social shift (which will happen gradually), and might take a generation. However that shouldn't >stop us building the tools to encourage that change, or to enable those people who do want to >contribute and participate.
----

James I have to disagree with you on that one - even from the start
the majority people where happy to add content to the internet and
indirectly the web from the start, in fact that was THE driving force
behind the invention of the Web, that people can and should easily be
able to add their own content as Tim Bernes Lee has been very vocal on
over the last 10 years.

Personaly I see Web 2.0 as web Beta - we've still yet to get to the
really good stuff.  We are still very very text based (and many IAs
are still treating the web like some stack of books) and the
restraints of browser like Internet Explorer have put the web back
several years.

I think that Web 2.0 needs to be de-geeked and for people to start
building useful sites rather than hashed up mash ups of sort of kinda
ideas. I was recently sent a job spec for a web start up in London
looking to build a social networking site. After a page of description
I still had no idea what the site wanted to do.   I personaly use
Flikr for my photography, linkedup for contacts and MySpace for my
band (you can't get a gig in London unless you're a major artist or
you have a MySpace page) and Usenet, which really does demonstrate
that the spirit of social networking was around from the start.

> That way, by the time the shift has happened, the tools will be much better, and we'll be able to >cater far more effectively for what human beings actually want to do with computers, which is not >typing HTML (sorry, Microformats), or choosing all the details of layout (sorry, MySpace). <(Although no, I don't know what it actually is :-)

Ah, the layout of Myspace.  Myspace is a complete bodge job of a site
but it got a few bulls eyes that makes all it's huge failings fade
away.  The flexibility of Myspace and the lack of constraint is what
makes it work, it ties into what being young and listening to music is
about - friends, doing what you want, listening to music for free, and
letting the world know what you like.  Other sites that have tried to
do this failed because they tried to control the content and impose a
style.  I'm over 25 and have pimped my myspace for my band so it's not
outside the understanding of the evened the greying professionals
here.  Also watch out for things starting to accelerate beyond PCs -
kids are watching TV on their computers because TV has yet to catch up
with their expectiations (watch out for people using 'TV 2.0' next -
and the term 'Viewsers' - be warned)



-- 
Stewart Dean