Thoughts on Web 2.0

While I have to admit that I was probably a little late to the party on Web 2.0, I think we all still have a lot to learn about this new generation of Internet technologies.

When I first got into online learning a decade ago, I was always working at institutions that didn’t have a lot of money to throw at new and exciting technologies, so I prided myself on finding ways to do very effective and somewhat cool things with what we already had on hand instead of the somewhat effective but very cool things that vendors (and sometimes faculty) were trying to get me to do (or buy).

And now, after working at or with dozens of different institutions across the country, it is interesting to note that none of those institutions have seemed to have a lot of money to throw at new and exciting technologies, not to mention the money required to attract the highly skilled people needed to make good use of those technologies.

The great thing now, however, is that most of the new technologies (i.e., Web 2.0) don’t require a lot of money. Heck, most of them don’t require any money.

But what are these new technologies that boast such a clever label?

There are many commentators and websites who will happily try to define Web 2.0 for you, but the best ones tend to take the high road and confess to not really knowing what they are. The best way I can explain it is that in the original dot-com boom of the late 90’s, the web was seen as a limitless revenue opportunity that was usually perceived as a document delivery mechanism, so it was set up as a somewhat closed environment.

Interaction and community were always buzzwords in the “old web” (i.e., Web 1.0), but they usually had an exclusivity about them, sort of like a party held at the clubhouse in a gated community. It’s interactive and even friendly, but it’s also rather limited in some fundamental ways.

Web 2.0, on the other hand, is much more open and user-driven. The web is no longer so much a delivery system as a platform for services and applications. It is about contribution and collaboration, about the collective generation and progression of thought instead of an individual transmission of information.

To be continued...