I haven't written something about not getting something internet related for a while...days at least. And, of all the things I do not get, I really do not get the Web 2.0 bubble:
Deep-pocketed companies are now angling for a piece of the Web 2.0 action - a quest that already has yielded a couple big jackpots, helping to propel the sales prices of startups to their highest levels since the dot-com boom...News Corp. paid $580 million in 2005 to buy MySpace, the largest social-networking site, and Google Inc. snapped up video-sharing pioneer YouTube Inc. for $1.76 billion late last year...In 2006, the average price paid for a startup funded by venture capitalists rose 19 percent to $114 million. That was the highest amount since the dot-com frenzy of 2000 when the average price of venture-backed startups peaked at $337 million, according to data from Thomson Financial and the National Venture Capital Association.Having lived tangentially though Y2K and the dot-com boom and fortunate, prior to those points in time, to have advised the webby people I knew that they should recession proof themselves (always good generic Maritimer advice), I can only scratch my head. Not so much at the boom - as these things happen - as history repeating itself so closely.
Once upon a time, the internet promised to replace commerce. The dot-com boom busted when it became apparent that people were just not going to buy dog food and sofas on-line and B2B still was going to require sales reps in 17 year old Ford rust buckets or flying in economy class roving the landscape to meet the people to make the deals. In large part the success of the internet on a retail basis is that it serves as the greatest flier insert ever. No one is really claiming now that the internet has in itself created a retail boom but I do get to find things to get - yet they only replace other things I would have gotten otherwise. And it only works for a few goods. I am still dependent on my grocer, for example, for my access to the most excellent of coffees at a reasonable price...not to mention all my other food. I could ship that coffee in via e-commerce (i-buying?) but that would cost too much. So I use e-commerce really only to buy that which is unattainable (very good homebrew supplies, unpopular books, quirky gifts). E-commerce works great for the unnecessary.
If we get right down to it, the internet now really only promises to replace your social life. I was reminded of this when actually I met up with some bloggers this week and went over all the things that never panned out: video blogging, podcasting, pervasive citizen journalism. Like early TV and its promise to bring education and two-way video communication into every home, lofty goals and intimate technologies get traded in for just more bulk entertainment. This is fine, I suppose, if you like bulk entertainment - and if watching cable TV or being a fiend for movies won't do it for you. We game, we chat in text, we make connections and discuss ideas with people whose lives would not otherwise touch ours. There is nothing wrong with this but, like the dot-com boom, how is it not just replacement of the inessentials? There is the eternal question of the Internet: would I not be better off if I held a dinner party for people I work with, joined a service club or rec sports team and actually talked with actual people, making real relationships upon which I can depend (rather than creating a dependency)...not to mention doing all that in the context of actually doing something? I would have to give up certain levels of real or illusionary control of the discussion as I would have to deal with people as people and put away the small pulpit and the accompanying pulpitism that the internet gives people. Could you imagine in 1985 the idea that social life could occur in something called MySpace as opposed to an "our"-space? A "my-space" then was where you were alone. I suspect in a very real way it still is except the trinkets and baubles as well as bells and whistles distract you from that.
I look forward to the collapse of social networking sites. The web-0.0-era hobbyists sorts will remain as always but I still plan a party for that great day. It will be interesting again to watch today's gurus become tomorrow's apologists, then accusers, then naysayers, then advocates for the next big thing - whatever the venture capitalists will believe that is in 2016. Whatever it will be...will they call it Web 3.0? Not likely. That would be like the guy who, early in 2000, I comforted with the knowledge that he was well suited for consultancy in Y3K.
Comments
Don - February 24, 2007 10:24 am
"I met up with some bloggers this week and went over all the things that never panned out: video blogging, podcasting, pervasive citizen journalism."
Perhaps a premature articulation Alan.
Check out the live video tream from PodCamp Toronto this weekend: http://podcamptoronto.pbwiki.com/Schedule
And plan on attending the second annual Podcasters Across Borders conference right here in Old Stones Central in late June:
http://www.podcastersacrossborders.com/?p=54
Alan - February 24, 2007 10:33 am
With great respect, Don, hobbyists are all fine and good but podcasting has not changed the world of blogging as was promised to me in 2003 and 2004. I would like to have my opinion changed (as always) but do not see the phenomena sweeping the landscape. <p><i>And</i> (while I am at it and nothing to do with you) I think hi-jacking calling audio files produced by news services as "podcasting" is a bit much. That was around long before RSS or iPod-like-objects and grabbing that into the definition can smack of guru-ism gone wild seeking to prove its own worth (again I speak of others.) <p>What I am referring to is peer-to-many-peers audio posting. What proves it for me is the lack of audio comments. I want to leave raspberries and Bronx cheers but no one wants that apparently.
cm - February 24, 2007 10:39 am
Well, no, but could that perhaps be because that would make you more real than your text-only posts? Although I suppose that doesn't explain the phenomenon of YouTube, does it, as that is even more real than sound-only. Regardless, web 2.0 is one of those things that I am resigned to never understanding.
Hans - February 24, 2007 10:48 am
"...the next big thing - whatever the venture capitalists will believe that is in 2016. Whatever it will be...will they call it Web 3.0?"
Wow. This Web 3.0 thing sounds awesome! Al, can you tell me more about it and how to get in on it?
;)
Alan - February 24, 2007 10:50 am
Smart move, Hans. I would offer you shares but I think you are man enough for a franchise of your own. I can send you the paperwork.
Darcey - February 24, 2007 11:25 pm
Apparently somebody is against the word "progressive". Things do develop and change and we've all witnessed growth. To kick out an "instance" within a growing cycle is wrong, because you condemn the growth.
Alan just came to annoy you back a little heh heh ;-)
Alan - February 25, 2007 8:12 am
Hmmm...Apparently I have sown seeds somewhere. I think if you were in my doing circle not my yapping one you would see that I am not against growth - but that is an inevitable side effect of beer blogging.
gorthos - February 25, 2007 5:25 pm
cm: I had to look it up because the term has been bugging me for a while. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0 ) so in the end I see it only as a term proffered and promoted by business means to turn what is just yet anoter change, regardless of how successful or temporary, in the ways people transfer information and collude.. Its a conspiracy baby.. the suits created the term. Down with the suits..
And podcasting.. meh.. I am SO disinterested in fillling in my walking, running, pondering time LISTENING to people yack while I already spend such a long and wasteful time READING their yackings, I see its death soonish..
Alan - February 25, 2007 5:31 pm
This is my favorite web 2.0 analysis.
gorthos - February 25, 2007 6:50 pm
How revealing yet simplistic in its presentation...
Don - February 25, 2007 8:24 pm
All right Web 2.0 contrarians, it's feeding time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE&eurl=
ALan - February 25, 2007 9:36 pm
Kinda odd, Don, having an argument in favour of W2.0 without hypertext or embed ;-) <p>Here it is for the non-cut-and-paste fans.<p><center><object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6gmP4nk0EOE"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6gmP4nk0EOE" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object></a></center><p>Interesting but entirely forgets the work of Vannevar Bush.<p>But the big questions still remain:<ul><li>If a blog is born twice a second, how many die?</li><li>Is this W2.0 not all the structuring of nothingness, a huge Seinfeldian mass of nothing with no one yet getting the joke (least of all VCs) that is no longer reliable through both its lack of indexing to find the best source and unauthorativeness so that even if the best is found we do not know if it is true?</li><li>Where is my jetpack?</li></ul>
gorthos - February 25, 2007 10:19 pm
Jetpack? I want my freaking pleasure-droid that cleans the french fries out of the car .
NYCO - February 26, 2007 3:57 pm
Here is a Youtube video from the Post-Standard on blogging and citizen journalism. (I do note that this opinion on it contains a "real-world" component.)<p><center>
<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/9QYJ6-VtuKo"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/9QYJ6-VtuKo" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object></center><p>[Ed.: <i>note the shameless plug for NYCO - justly deserved, too.</i>]
Jay Currie - February 26, 2007 5:00 pm
I've never really got the Web 2.0 hype (but, again, back when algore was inventing the net I was pretty sure no one would remember addresses like http://www.genx40.com/archives/2007/february/web20valuations#replies. Silly me, the machine does it.)
Podcasting and video are fabulous for really, really limited, on demand applications. If I want to see the whites of a CFO's eyes as he answers questions on a quarterly conference call video is great.
I am inclined to think that we are just beginning to see the real dimensions of the text based internet. Between Google and Wikipedia a rather significant portion of human knowledge is available in ways we are only just now discovering.
While this does not track exactly, I would say the 1986-2000 period of the net was black and white television, 2001-now is the introduction of colour; but the next stage will be exploring all the things you can do with the technology. The 2.0 mashups are just the surface. We have not yet seen what a generation of kids who grew up with mice in their hands, massive gaming, Google for homework and scripts for fun are going to come up with. (And I am rather afraid I will not understand that thing or things in any event.)
For a twenty year set of technologies the pc/internet thing has done pretty well on the "completely revolutionizes every aspect of society" front. And we have not yet really met the clickit generation who have been raised by these machines and in a completely connected environment.
Alan - February 26, 2007 5:20 pm
I have my locker filled with the same stock answers but there has been gaming kids since I was the gaming kid in the late 70s and human knowledge has always been readily available.
But you know I think that. What interests me recently is that the speed of the introduction of novelty is outstripping the speed of adoption. So when I read about a law firm as I just did winning some certificate or award for having a great video podcast, it is not proof to me of acceptance so much as irrelevance - just find a law firm actually blogging on a constant and meaningful basis. That is so 2005. Things are being altered, amended and improved before anyone can make any practical use of them.
Which makes me fear I am past my jetpack opportunity. That was likely there in mid-October 2006 or so.
Alan - February 26, 2007 5:28 pm
Example:<blockquote class="smalltext">"...The other one that I really think should be exciting lawyers, and doesn't seem to have caught fire yet in the legal community is Google AdWords. If you do a Google search, you'll get the usual results on the left-hand side of the page, and then Google AdWords, where people have paid for placement based on keywords on the right-hand side. I have tested it and in many communities, no lawyer has taken the opportunity to list themselves and their practice areas using Google AdWords. This is a great way to be distinctive on the Web.</blockquote>This is from the Jan-Feb issue of <i>National</i>, the Canadian Gar Association magazine. Here comes the future of the recent past!<p>And doesn't it strike you sometimes that the advances in information technology have a lot to do with something related to style and the need for built in redundancy to ensure there is a sale to come in the 18 month cycle? What really can I do now that I could not do in 2003 or 1998 <i>that makes a difference</i> to me?