The ‘revolution’ as some people called it, is over. Time to review and take a look at what Web 2.0 really brought us and what the consequences are. Web 2.0 made content and opinions more important, for example the social media sites that are growing at insane speeds. Before Web 2.0 became such a hot item, Digg was just a small player in the field, now it’s (for a lot bloggers) the absolute #1 referrer.
Photo by D’Arcy Norman
We all agree that opinions are valuable, but are they so valuable that we have to struggle trough articles and webpages that are recommended by other people, before we reach the actual content that we are interested in? Sports and hot items are becoming much more popular while news and backgrounds are disappearing in oblivion.
Beyond the actual meaning of Web 2.0
Opinions where important before Web 2.0, everyone has their own opinion, but with Web 2.0 the opinions became important. And with important, I mean important. Websites like Digg hopped in on this idea and let the users of the website decide which articles and pages are important and which are not.
This automatically means that whatever subject has the most fans using (for example) Digg, becomes the most popular. When this remains on the site, there is no problem. But what if we think ahead a few years, what if more and more of this will be applied to the internet. We’ve seen sings of Google experimenting with ratings on search results, so it is likely that more websites will follow.
Once we start giving our opinion on everything and the web becomes controlled by opinions, the subject with the most fans(/voters) will be the most valuable for the internet. For as long as Google sorts it’s search results in order of relevance, we have no problem. Once the search giant will let their users’ opinion affect the results, opinions will be more important on the internet than actual facts.
What made Web 2.0 such a hype?
For most people, Web 2.0 is just a period in which a lot webdevelopers start using round corners, soft colors and glossy looking logo’s and buttons. But that’s exactly where it all goes wrong. Web 2.0, as far as it is still intact, was all about bringing the content to the front of websites. The graphical extra’s are just side-effect of the actual meaning of the ‘revolution’ called Web 2.0.
The content is, and hopefully always will be, the most important of a website, wether is a weblog or a encyclopedia. Content is what the internet is all about, information shared with nearly everyone in the world, the true purpose of the internet.
Web 2.0 gave us powerful tools and good looking websites, but we need to be carefull. Actual facts are, and will always be, more important than someones opinion about it. Let’s all put more importance in relevance and leave the opinions on the side, where they belong. It’s the content that matters, not the opinions about it.
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I think you’ve got a strong point here. The long tail (niches) won’t benefit from the big social media sites…
True and that is exactly why we should put (and keep it that way) more importance to the actual content and put the opinions to the side.
Opinions ain’t the most valuable that we can find on the internet (as far as you see weblogs as information and not just opinions).
Not only the long tail niches are ’suffering’ on Web 2.0, I think the entire internet will do so.
True, Web 2.0 has some advantages but certainly some disadvantages…
It’s definitely getting harder to find actual information on the ‘net. Even the sites of the more reliable news sources- Time, Maclean’s, and the like- have far too much focus on their staffs’ opinions and interpretations of the facts. Add to that the fact that, as you say, sports and ‘hot’ items (read celebrity ‘news’) seem to have more precedence over real information and one no longer wonders why there is a dumbing down of our society. to use one example, the default start page on Juno has celebrity news at the top of the page while the real news is buried about two-thirds of the way down.
So true! Information like celebrity news, like you name it, is getting more ‘important’ than news about wars and other trouble in the world. Perhaps an idea for a new post, ‘Actual news, less imporant than celebrities?’.
Thanks for your comment, I appreciate such large comments!
Great view on this all Jussi, thanks for sharing.
It’s too bad that even great names in the industry tend to give up on traditional quality content and start posting content that is part of the trend, called Web 2.0.
That is what we call progress, I think.
The old web: You needed knowledge to create content… I remember (sometimes fondly) the times where it took minutes just to send a single sentence to a server in … let’s say Atlanta.
You typed a sentence, went out and grabbed a coffee, returned and watched the last three characters appear on-screen just in time.
No ads. Mostly text based sites.
The next step was: You could create all kinds of content. BUT: You needed knowledge…
HTML - to get started
CSS - to give it that “unique” look
PERL - for the inevitable CGIs
JAVA - for applets
Add PHP (or ASP) later on…
And if you went THAT far already, you’d also learn at least how to set up an Apache Server… And Flash can spice things up and and and…
(You might even combine some of your knowledge and unknowingly create… AJAX?)
Web 2.0…
Here we are, the Web belongs to everyone, no more technical knowledge needed… So everyone contributes.
Imagine the old times of the Internet as a department store. Very easy to find anything you need.
Imagine the new Internet as some kind of (very colorful) bazaar.
And, oh, I agree with the above article. Information retrieval has become much harder. But placing emphasis on opinions instead of hard information… Is something you don’t see in the Internet only.