A Blog About Making Culture
Defining Web 2.0
April 13, 2005
Because I've been following Richard MacManus' work on defining "Web 2.0" in Wikipedia, I really enjoyed Dan's rant about the terrible definition that was originally posted. I can't think of anybody better qualified to sift through the bullshit.
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Richard MacManus 
Just to clarify, I haven’t actually done any editing of that Wikipedia definition yet. I have been trying to hammer out an understanding of what Web 2.0 is on my blog though, so I intend to transfer that ‘knowledge’ onto Wikipedia in due course.
I think Dan’s done some great work on the Wikipedia defn of Web 2.0, but I thought he was a bit rough on Kingsley (the guy who wrote the first version). Sure there was lots of marketing-speak in the original version, but I give Kingsley credit for starting the process and he’s contributed some key insights. Now it’s up to people like Dan (and myself) to go in there and clean it up, build on it, make it easy for non-geeks to grok.
regards, Richard
Dan Hartung
Anil, thanks — I’d been stewing on that for a week, one of the reasons it was so tangy.
And seriously (Richard, and anyone), this isn’t personal about Kingsley, but about bad writing. Anybody who’s been through a real writing workshop knows about the dreaded ego-crushing group critique. But we learn to use it to make ourselves better writers.
I don’t think it served anybody to try to define something already as amorphous and changeable as “Web 2.0” (and here I feel free to add, “whatever that is”) in the language of bureaucrats and publicists. Frankly, half of that definition could have been fodder for Dilbert strips. Despite a deliberate (and, I felt, sycophantic) name-check of the Wiki and blog “spheres”, Kingsley surely doesn’t get it, if he can’t see how to describe those “value propositions” in concrete ways. What does 43things do? What does Amazon web services open up? How does syndication change? What ways do these ideas impact the grandmas in Punxutawney who are, or should be, the ultimate beneficiaries of a more robust web computing environment? That’s what needs to be explained, and everything I saw there only served to make it impossible to get from here to there. I’m not a particularly technical person, despite my career in corporate IT, but I’m a big boy — I can handle jargon. Even so, that page made my head hurt. If anything, it made Web 2.0 look like push — stupid and unnecessary.
I say this not to pile on to an easy target, but because this is going to be an ongoing challenge for all of us. How do we justify the new services and websites that are appearing with the regularity of noxious weeds? How do we sell products, if we can’t explain them to customers? If we don’t know how to explain it, we probably don’t know what we’re doing, and Web 2.0 is destined to be stillborn. It’s the Joshua Tree principle. Thinking about what it is we’re building with Web 2.0 is essential to providing a Web 2.0 that is actually useful and usable.
I’ve now rewritten about 80% of the article in my own words; I’m gradually refactoring, as we say on Wikipedia, because I believe that creating the proper structure for an article there is at least as important as the actual wording itself. I hope that there will be more input, especially in terms of practical examples of the power and potential we all think we see in what we’re — probably unwisely — calling Web 2.0. I’m probably wrong about a few things, though I’ve really tried not to be. It’s been a salutary exercise for myself, so I’m glad I’ve done it, now. Richard, I hope that you, and Kingsley, can see why.
Richard MacManus
Why is it unwise to call it Web 2.0? Just because a few Microsofties don’t like the term (if anyone doesn’t “get it”, it’s Microsoft!) ;-) I’m kidding of course… or am I?
Anyway, I’m glad the Web 2.0 definition is being debated and thrashed out on the Wikipedia.
John Dowdell
Who first defined that “Web 2.0’ label? How did that label come into common use?
This could have a lot to do with “the definition”, yes…?
tx, jd/mm
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