If someone asked you to describe Web 2.0 in one word, what would it be? I'll let you know what my answer would be in a minute, but first, let's take a look at this question from a couple of perspectives.
One of the things I have noticed while researching Web 2.0 software over the past few months is that many vendors have released new versions of their product during 2006 and 2007 with a new marketing bullet point proclaiming that their product-- whatever it is, but let's say it's some type of CRM--is Web 2.0 enabled. When you take a close look at the difference between their older version and the new and improved Web 2.0 version, you can see how the vendor would answer this question. In many cases their one word for Web 2.0 would be AJAX or possibly Web Services or SOA.
Another perspective is captured by the contributors to the Wikipedia article on the subject. They list the following general characteristics as defining Web 2.0:
"Network as platform" — delivering (and allowing users to use) applications entirely through a browser. See also Web operating system. Users owning the data on a site and exercising control over that data. An architecture of participation that encourages users to add value to the application as they use it. This stands in sharp contrast to hierarchical access-control in applications, in which systems categorize users into roles with varying degrees of functionality. A rich, interactive, user-friendly interface based on Ajax or similar frameworks. Some social-networking aspects.
When you consider a definition like this, there are a number of words that come to mind: participation, web operating system (I know, it's 3 words), open, social, AJAX.
Markus Angermeier did a great job a couple of years back mapping some of the more common memes related to Web 2.0
As you can see, it's tough to sum Web 2.0 up in one word, especially when the definition by the community seems to be all over the place, with some people focusing on the technologies that have enabled the wonders of Web 2.0 and other people focusing on the adjectives or verbs which capture the essence or the effect of the use of new technologies.
The interesting thing about Markus' mind map of the memes is that many of the words listed were in use long before the term Web 2.0 became popular back in 2004. It seems as though Web 2.0 is a term that captures a point in time where the technologies, the infrastructure and the participants related to the internet reached critical mass, thereby giving rise to an explosion of creativity regarding how to use the internet as a medium for connecting and sharing knowledge.
I bring this up now, because I am hearing from a variety of industries an interest in breaking free of the confines of the old way of doing business and embracing new policies and new forms of management which facilitate, very much in the same way as we have seen with Web 2.0, an explosion of productivity and efficiency.
It’s interesting when you consider the sociological impact of Web 2.0 on organizations of all sizes. It’s hard to say which came first, but the concept of an unconference started in 2004 with BloggerCon and has since been adopted in many industries. A current meme among association executives as tracked by the authors of We Have Always Done It That Way: 101 Things About Associations We Must Change is the concept of ungovernance.
I read people like Jeff De Cagna and I realize that a new kind of executive is in demand, one who understands that their chief responsibility is, as Jeff said recently, “the capable stewardship of sustainable business models powered by innovation.”
When I try to imagine what this might mean in the real world and when I think of what it is that drives some of the more powerful aspects of Web 2.0 such as convergence and collaboration, one word comes to mind: emergence.
When I was able to pull my head out of the sand back in January of this year (2007) and I looked around at the incredible changes taking place in both business and technology, the epiphany I had was that an paradigm shift had taken place in the areas of both business and technology, and everywhere I looked, it appeared that the fuel behind each little explosion of creativity was the desire to see and experience emergent behavior.
I’ve started reading Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software
by Steven Johnson, and I’ve realized that while Web 2.0 covers a broad range of changes in technology and in standards and architecture, the one underlying theme connecting all of these changes is that they make it easier for emergent behavior to thrive and to produce these amazing new levels in productivity and efficiency.
If this is true, then Web 2.0 and unconferences and ungovernance are all related in that they are all fueled by the same underlying desire to publish and produce, at an individual level, pieces of work that contribute to the greater whole. What an awesome feeling to be a part of something that transcends the limits of your own existence and allows you to produce something like Wikipedia, which has roughly 2 million articles and is currently more than 15 times the size of the next largest encyclopedia, and unlike it’s printed competitors contains content that is updated just minutes after any major event.
Regardless of which side of the great divide you find yourself (technology or business), you will benefit from asking yourself, how can I leverage the underlying desire to be connected and to contribute to meaningful projects which contribute to the greater good within my industry or organization?
How about you, what one word would you use to describe Web 2.0? Or better yet, what one word do you think will describe Web 3.0? More on that to come…