Web 2.0 is an Oxymoron
I had the pleasure of speaking on a panel on Web 2.0 last week at the New York Software Industry Association (NYSIA) monthly meeting.
It was a fun panel, featuring Dennis Crowley from Dodgeball (now part of Google), Josh Schachter from Del.icio.us (acquired by Yahoo!), Bob Wyman from PubSub, which remains independent, and me. It was moderated by Howard Greenstein who did a great job of keeping the conversation moving.
At one point, I blurted out that Web 2.0 is an oxymoron. It had never occurred to me before, but at the moment I realized the irony of the name.
Possibly the greatest thing about these lightweight web services that we all now call Web 2.0 is that they are constantly updated with new functionality. It seems that every day I long onto one or more of them and find new features that have been rolled out without any effort on my part.
Contrast that with the traditional update cycle in software. Sometime this year Microsoft will roll out Vista and those of us who operate in a Windows environment will take time out of our daily lives to upgrade our operating system. It will be a painful process. Some stuff won’t work right after the upgrade. We’ll need to figure out how to navigate the new user interface. We’ll fumble around for days until we get the hang of the new software.
It’s even worse for the sys admins who operate large scale application software packages in corporate datacenters. The upgrade cycles for the technology that powers large enterprises is filled with dread and long nights getting the new stuff working.
It is the very naming convention (1.0, 2.0, 3.0) for new versions of installed software that we take the name Web 2.0 from. People are already starting to blog/think about Web 3.0 and what that will bring.
I think we should drop this version based naming convention on the Web because that’s not how it works best. The web evolves every day. There was no 1.0 and there is no 2.0 and there will be no 3.0. Just a long graceful road we are traveling where the scenery changes every day.
February 1, 2006 12:25 PM, By Fred Wilson
Tags: web20
Comments (14)
Fred, whether combining "Web" with "2.0" is an oxymoron or not depends on how you interpret the "2.0". If it suggests an abrupt software-upgrate-type change, then it makes no sense. If it suggests a distributed applications strategy, then why not?
Your oxymoron-based comments, however, suggest that the "new web" is immune from the traditional software upgrade cycles.
You might technically be correct. However, when your application depends on web services provided by a separate 3rd party (as in the "new web" or "Web 2.0"), you run the substantial risk of a broken functionality (technically and/or business-wise) that's completely beyond your control.
So, maybe we're trading one problem (glitches in distributing version upgrades to centralized software) for another (glitches caused by non-synchronization of the business and technical interests of applications developers and web service providers).
Just my $0.02 (maybe $0.05) contribution.
Posted by Terry Steichen , February 1, 2006 07:44 PM
This is a terrific discussion point for this unseasonably warm February night. I do agree we all tend to grasp onto terms and drive them into the ground until they die a gradual and painful death. We all focus on so much on specific terminology to describe concepts and ideas, which many times are not a very accurate portrayal of what we are striving towards.
However; in this case, I really do believe the title Web 2.0 is a wonderfully complex and exceptionally descriptive portrayal. It is a great representation of where we are today in a long history of this ever embryonic planet. The dilemma is that many people are considering the term and title of ‘Web 2.0’ either linearly or one dimensionally, rather than allowing for it to become a complex network of inter-tangled living molecules and communities. The predicament comes when using traditional software lexicon (such as 2.0) and drawing assumptions that the equivalent logic applies to our life and culture. The overall very descriptive term is being narrow cast, or even typecast, rather than interpreted for what it truly symbolizes.
Yes, the Web economy is constantly shifting, rearranging, and evolving; there is no doubt in this fact as we watch it happen daily. This phenomenon can be observed by studying impressive success stories such as Del.icio.us and MySpace. There is no doubt that eBusiness has transformed, and will continue to transform, noticeably. The net-economy is living in an innovative and fresh new stratosphere, beyond ever imagined. The molecules in the vast web are constantly moving, growing, and civilizing. The overall webs ‘solar’ system is churning and maturing as it develops into a living and breathing spirit, a.k.a. zeitgeist.
The real challenge comes into play when people struggle to use the Web 2.0 terminology to tie back to something tangible, they run immediately into problems. I agree the term is being used in this way, and that is an oxymoron. But I always say, don’t look at it as a product or even as a state of being, look at it as describing where we are in the grander scheme of the lifetime of our galaxy. I am sure you wouldn’t disagree that Web 2.0 is a real seismic event in our combined lifetimes. There is no doubt that it is making a distinct mark in our world, which will have a ripple effect into the lives of our children and grandchildren.
Please don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe there is an answer to the meaning of life hidden in this evolving being. I also don’t think O’Reilly intended for the term to be interpreted in the way I have described above. But when dealing in business and life today, I really feel the energy and emotions around the Web 2.0 generation. It is an immense disruption in where we are as a culture, and will have a lasting effect on our lives.
I must tell you, I wake up everyday looking forward to seeing what will come next…
Posted by Jim Larrison , February 1, 2006 08:37 PM
We have been updating our web app every month for the past 5 years and have stopped using version numbers. Why, because some things are small and some are big, but we do not have to rely on an upgrade cycle. Version numbers are just a marketing devise to get people to upgrade. Microsoft uses completely different names for OS - Windows XP to Windows Vista to make it sound like a different product.
A web app is like a blog, constantly changing. This is why we don't number new blog posts. Web 2.0 is just a meme to get people to reconsider the web again.
Posted by Dan Cornish , February 1, 2006 10:02 PM
No no, of course we have to have clear demarcations like Web 2.0, Web 3.0 etc.
Reference points are important because they unleash a fountain of creativity and opportunity which would not exist otherwise.
Posted by Daniel Nerezov , February 2, 2006 12:00 AM
I agree with you..."Just a long graceful road we are traveling where the scenery changes every day." Well said.
Posted by eric goldstein , February 2, 2006 12:37 AM
You've caught a nice little nit, and I agree with your reasoning. But, I think the naming convention of Web2.0, and the probably approaching 3.0, has been adopted only to frame conversations. Since it's not a literal or serious versioning issue, it would cause more confusion if one proposed an alternative.
Posted by Cem Sertoglu , February 2, 2006 06:36 AM
In my view, the versioning analogy makes a lot of sense in the web context because we use it to signal a paradigm shift, rather than an update. So Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 co-exist, with 1.0 applications hyperlinking away and 2.0 applications having made the paradigm shift to a new, lightweight and anticipatory way of interacting with the user. 2.0 signals all the innovation that can be build on top of this new concept of the web experience.
Posted by Adam Elend , February 2, 2006 09:25 AM
As other commenters have suggested, the change from the Web1.0 to 2.0 vocabulary is a conventional but clumsy way of identifying a psychological tranformation rather than a technical one. Irrespective of the fact that software development has fundamentally changed and Version-numbering no longer serves the same purpose, the transformation implied by going to 2.0 is very real from the stanpoint of how people approach development on the web, how they approach marketing on the web, etc. There's no reason to get lost in the metaphor and forget the message.
I'm all for creating a new way of marking these changes that isn't tied to prior methods. Any ideas out there?
Posted by Todd K , February 2, 2006 12:15 PM
I agree with Jim Larrison 100%. The idea the 2.0 is a literal name makes no sense. Look at the big picture.
Posted by Jeff DeRubbo , February 2, 2006 02:49 PM
i love the fact that people keep writing articles with Web 2.0 in the headline that talk about why the term Web 2.0 isn't on target / is all hype / will kill us all... (please keep it coming fred ;)
meanwhile, i give you:
The Top 10 Reasons Web 2.0 is Like Disco>
http://blog.simplyhired.com/archives/2006/01/top_10_reasons_1.php
enjoy,
- dave mcclure
www.simplyhired.com
Posted by Dave McClure , February 3, 2006 12:00 AM
real software has versions, serious software isn't updated every 3 days. operating systems are incredibly complex and highly detail oriented, web apps tend to be discrete, simple. and customers want stability--require it, really. the world of the constant beta is interesting, sure. but you're comparing apples and bananas. mmm...bananas.
Posted by Charlie Crystle , February 3, 2006 01:07 AM
Nice post.
The web, 1.0 or 2.0 or 2006 or whatever we want to call it, is not immune from what I call 'upgrade shock' - I can't even tell you the number if times in the last few years where I've gone to my bank's web site only to find that they've revamped it without warning, with a 'new and improved' version, requiring me to spend more time hunting down the login link or some other frequently used item.
This happens more than people realize, and the relative ease with which a new web site or web application can be rolled out contributes to this phenomenon.
Established users value interface stability, even if the interface sucks somewhat. Developers of all stripes would do well to remember this.
Posted by Mike C. , February 3, 2006 11:54 AM
I was at the panel at the NYSIA event and I agree that the term Web 2.0 is oxymoronic (?) from a technology insider standpoint. We all know that version 2.0 is soo Q3 05. Yet the term works well as a marketing concept to the people that need to consume this technolgy for us to make a living. Web 2.0 its a logical, easily consumable term to position "the new web" as something to get exited about so that these new services can gain mass appeal they deserve.
For the rest of us in the inside... I like the term 'writable web".
I read a post by Robert Kaye recently which I think sums up the term well:
"Here at ETech, I think I finally got an answer! Yesterday afternoon during Tim Bray's presentation on Atom he mentioned that his boss, Hal Stern, obvererved that if you replace 2.0 with writeable it makes a lot more sense. Web 2.0 is the writable web and the Web 1.0 was the read-only web."
for a link to the source see: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/9291
Posted by Trip Foster , March 22, 2006 11:10 AM
I'm not sure I agree. I mean sure, versioning is silly. But there are some clearly defined transitional periods. Personally, I hate all the web 2.0 hype. Maybe it should be left to historians to draw the lines, instead of those of us who are 10 miles deep in the industry.
Posted by Jeremy Wright , February 1, 2006 05:48 PM