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Your independent resource on business integration and network computing through middleware and message brokering
Web 2.0
Tom Welsh
Consultant
Management introduction
Ten years or more have passed since the World Wide Web was new, unknown and full of exciting potential. Today we are seeing a sudden upsurge of interest in the phenomenon known as 'Web 2.0'. Companies have been founded, conferences set up and products launched; thousands of bloggers have argued about its true significance; and, finally, Time magazine chose Web 2.0 as its person of the year. The Web is back in the limelight with a vengeance.
But what does it all mean for business? It is clear that Web 2.0 sites like Flickr, MySpace, and YouTube are setting new records for membership size while persuading consumers to publish their personal data on an unprecedented scale. Wikipedia is merely the bestknown of many sites overflowing with valuable (and often accurate) reference information. And commercially-oriented companies like 37signals.com, BlinkSale, iPressRoom and SalesForce.com are beginning to take detectable market share - potentially the thin end of a very big wedge.
In this analysis, Tom Welsh examines the nature of Web 2.0, the technology (middleware) that powers it and the implications it holds for consumers, government and business.
Figure 6.1: Tim Reilly's Web 2.0 meme map
Figure 6.2: Web 1.0 vs 2.0
Figure 6.3: The long tail
Management conclusion
The name 'Web 2.0' is a misnomer, as it does not denote a major new version of the Web. Nor does it imply that any important technical breakthrough has been made.
On the contrary, the most influential new software techniques that characterize Web 2.0 sites are independent of the Web, or even inconsistent with its overall architecture. For example AJAX, syndication, blogs, wikis, and Web Services all lie outside REST, the architectural style of the Web.
Yet Web 2.0 turns out to be a successful practical compromise. All these diverse components play well together and achieve the desired results. For - as Mr. Welsh argues - Web 2.0 is not primarily a networking phenomenon, nor even anything to do with software. Instead, it is a revolution in ways of applying the Web and related middleware techniques:
- the Web was originally used for publishing and sharing textual data and simple graphics
- next, a wave of commercial applications arrived, culminating in the Dot.Com years
- today, it is time to learn from the experience of the last 15 years and move on.
Web 2.0 does this by meeting consumers more than halfway. It encourages them to participate with inducements that they find it hard to resist. It is also where middleware plays, as it always has, in providing the connections.