Web 2.0: A web of entanglement

We often hear the term Web 2.0, but what does it mean and how does it apply to web designers?

Tim O’Reilly (2005) answers these questions by writing:

The concept of “Web 2.0” began with a conference brainstorming session between O’Reilly and MediaLive International. Dale Dougherty, web pioneer and O'Reilly VP, noted that far from having "crashed", the web was more important than ever, with exciting new applications and sites popping up with surprising regularity. What’s more, the companies that had survived the collapse seemed to have some things in common. Could it be that the dot-com collapse marked some kind of turning point for the web, such that a call to action such as “Web 2.0” might make sense? We agreed that it did, and so the Web 2.0 Conference was born. (p. 1)

Furthermore, O’Reilly and Dougherty (2005) developed the following 7 principles in regards to Web 2.0

1. The Web As Platform
2. Harnessing Collective Intelligence
3. Data is the Next Intel Inside
4. End of the Software Release Cycle
5. Lightweight Programming Models
6. Software Above the Level of a Single Device
7. Rich User Experiences

Moreover, Web 2.0 refers to changes in the ways end-users and software developers utilize the World Wide Web; however, there are potential drawbacks to Web 2.0.

Author and entrepreneur Andrew Keen is very critical of Web 2.0 in his book entitled The Cult of the Amateur.

According to Keen (2007):

The Cult of the Amateur is a critique of the ideal of citizen media. It argues that, behind the seductive language of a “democratised” media lies a threat to objective information and high-quality entertainment. The book argues that the traditional gatekeepers of mainstream media are being replaced by a chaos of anonymous internet activists who are pursuing often corrosive cultural, political and economic agendas of their own.

I wrote the book to challenge the stifling intellectual orthodoxy of digital Utopianism in Silicon Valley. The Cult of the Amateur is a subversion of the original subversion. I’m exposing Web 2.0 and revealing that, behind the radical rhetoric lies the economic, cultural and political interests of a new class of media oligarchs.

As with most things, the human element is the deciding factor of whether or not Web 2.0 will foster independent thinking and culture literacy.

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O'Reilly, T. (2005). What is web 2.0: Design patterns and business models for the next generation of software. Retrieved from http://oreilly.com/pub/a/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html

.net Magazine (Interviewer) & Keen, A. (Interviewee). 2007. Discover interview series [Interview transcript]. Retrieved from http://www.netmag.co.uk/zine/discover-interview/andrew-keen