It is over. The emperor has no clothes. Time to get out your old Web 1.0 t-sirts and accept the bitter truth:
Web 2.0, a catchphrase for the latest generation of Web sites where users contribute their own text, pictures and video content, is far less participatory than commonly assumed, a study showed Tuesday. A tiny 0.16 per cent of visits to Google's top video-sharing site, YouTube, are by users seeking to upload video for others to watch, according to a study of online surfing data by Bill Tancer, an analyst with Web audience measurement firm Hitwise. Similarly, only two-tenths of one per cent of visits to Flickr, a popular photo-editing site owned by Yahoo Inc., are to upload new photos, the Hitwise study found. The vast majority of visitors are the Internet equivalent of the television generation's couch potatoes — voyeurs who like to watch rather than create, Tancer's statistics show.Oh. My. God.
You know, this really surprises me be cause, you know, everybody at work blogs, right? Non-stop. And nobody looks at me like I have three heads when I say the word "blog" any more. And I am making thousands a month from my Google ads. That is the beauty of the new e-conomy. It's like earning piles of cash for doing next to nothing...or is it the other way around.
[Ed.: I should have dubbed this "Wake Up To Web-ality Week" but who knew this would be the week the wheels started to fall off. Secret - I use bank tellers.]
Comments
Gordo - April 19, 2007 10:23 AM
Very few users of YouTube actually upload something and this is news? Puh-lease.
Alan - April 19, 2007 10:30 AM
So the joy of the participatory web is its capacity to let 99.8% of participants be passive. Great.
Gordo - April 19, 2007 11:56 AM
Again, this is news why?
Alan - April 19, 2007 11:59 AM
I think if you try fisking your previous response you will obtain your intended satisfactory answer.
Gordo - April 19, 2007 12:37 PM
I just don't understand your constant beating down of the web 2.0 thing, Alan. It was idiotic to actually label the evolution of online services with a version number ot begin with. The sooner people stop talking about it, the sooner we can get back to looking at porn and playing games online.
Alan - April 19, 2007 1:01 PM
You seem to be the only one who doesn't get it - especially as there has been no evolution just a branding of the evolution for purposes of profit. I have to face the branding of this sort of nonsense as a procurer so do not have an passing experience of it. You may want to learn more here.
Gordo - April 19, 2007 1:10 PM
Oh, I get it, Alan. Marketing wonks have invented the term to package what the web was supposed to be five years ago to know-nothing schlubs.
How can there be a "branding of the evolution" if there is no evolution to brand?
Alan - April 19, 2007 1:14 PM
BINGO! The thing is what it is - which includes many faults and inherently damaging characteristics - but unlike any other technology or commodity there is no actual evaluation of actual performance. One massive and massively profitable assumption tied up with a great big branding bow. Many great things mixed up with many bad things and a huge huge amount of inefficiencies - but only mention the great things.
Do you know that my kids have never sat in a class room with a video link watching and being watched by kids in Asian sitting in a class room! Amazing. Also amazing in the suggestion that this in any way is something that adds anything to anything...yet there it is nightly as an ad. That is why I only believe the Geico gecko.
Hans - April 19, 2007 1:46 PM
So we can go back to surfing for porn when?
Gordo - April 19, 2007 1:48 PM
That's what draws me to work, Hans .. :-D
Gorthos - April 19, 2007 2:42 PM
Dare I wade in with a long winded and probably poorly spell checked response? Naw, I'll just say Alan is completely right.. and I'm with the boys wanting more free pr0n.
Alan - April 19, 2007 2:47 PM
Pr0n is fleeting and embarrassing. Sports scores and video highlights are eternal and sublime.
Gorthos - April 19, 2007 4:51 PM
Don't forget the free funny videos put onine by 0.000016% of the population on youtube! Nothing beats a guy dressed as darth vader running a grocery store!
portland - April 19, 2007 10:33 PM
i have no idea what fisking is but it sounds incredibly dirty. yuck.
ALan - April 19, 2007 11:10 PM
I thought "fisking your own comment" was a pretty good call out for web 2.0.
Will "I Don't Get Much" - June 28, 2007 6:58 AM
Is this suppose to be an intellectual conversation? I fail to see the point in this ranting...oh duh, it is to get people to come read what you say so they can click on your google adsense links and make you lot's [Ed.: <i>sic</i> or <i>hic</i>?] of money.
In my opinion, Web 2.0 is just a name given to something that is happening anyway. Everything evolves and humans have to label it in order to make it fit their purpose.
Alan - June 28, 2007 7:50 AM
Then you won't mind me obfuscating the link to your lonely corner of the information superhighway.
David Janes - June 28, 2007 8:16 AM
We decided yesterday to rename the Web the old Microsoft style, so there'll be no consumer confusing. It's now "Web 2007" (or "Web 2.007" if you prefer that way). Unfortunately, that means we have Web ME and Web XP comining up next...
Alan - June 28, 2007 8:57 AM
I am going rename myself Al2007.
David Janes - June 28, 2007 9:26 AM
Which, fortunately or unfortunately, looks something like (A)rtifical (I)ntelligence 2007. And of course, everyone will have to upgrade next year or their support will be dropped.
Alan - June 28, 2007 9:49 AM
I have this feeling that I am incompatable already.
Hans - June 28, 2007 1:39 PM
Is this or is this not an intellectual conversation? I can't tell!?!?!