The World Wide Web: W3, Web 2.0 and Beyond

The Internet (network) is not the Web (URL addresses, applications, connections and content - and recently, people).

The internet is the system of connected local area networks, the network of networks that uses Internet Protocol (IP) language as a common system of data transfer.

The World Wide Web - 'Web" for short - is the system of hypertext documents connected by hyperlinks, accessed via a Web browser (Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, etc.) over the internet.

The concept of the Web has to do with how we extract value out of internet connectivity, and significant changes are afoot, highlighted by what has come to be called Web 2.0.

The Web Grows Up

Web 2.0 is a good jumping off point to discuss the evolution and implications of the World Wide Web. More important than the term Web 2.0 is the evolution it embodies.

Web 2.0 as a label emerged at the Web 2.0 Conference in 2004 sponsored by Tim O'Reilly. So far, feedback on this concept is wide-ranging, from "it's a load of hype" to "it's the second coming of the Web."

For the unitiated, Wikipedia is a great resource on the relatively new phenomenon of Web 2.0 - see both the Web 2.0 listing, as well as the entire Web 2.0 Category listing.

At its most simple, Web 2.0 is a term that describes what the Web is becoming: websites are more and more interactive, now including features like YouTube video clips, blogs, wikis and podcasts - tools for interactivity - that provide much more utility than older websites, which tended to be more static presentations of information, with limited e-commerce capabilities.

Here's a synopsis of what the Web looks like (looked like, this was written nearly three years ago):

The scope of the Web today is hard to fathom. The total number of Web pages, including those that are dynamically created upon request and document files available through links, exceeds 600 billion. That's 100 pages per person alive.

The accretion of tiny marvels can numb us to the arrival of the stupendous. Today, at any Net terminal, you can get: an amazing variety of music and video, an evolving encyclopedia, weather forecasts, help wanted ads, satellite images of anyplace on Earth, up-to-the-minute news from around the globe, tax forms, TV guides, road maps with driving directions, real-time stock quotes, telephone numbers, real estate listings with virtual walk-throughs, pictures of just about anything, sports scores, places to buy almost anything, records of political contributions, library catalogs, appliance manuals, live traffic reports, archives to major newspapers - all wrapped up in an interactive index that really works.
Kevin Kelly in Wired 13.08: We Are the Web, August 2005

Review of the Year's Best Web 2.0 Explanations from Dion Hinchcliffe's Web 2.0 Blog

Don Hinchcliffe's Web 2.0 Blog provides a great snapshot of the Web 2.0 culture from 2005. The graphic above, from that site, demonstrates the complexities of this topic - the Web has grown amazingly complex, amazingly fast.

This website also includes a list of the Best (Or Most Interesting) Web 2.0 Definitions and Explanations - as well as The Best Web 2.0 Software of 2005.

All Things Web 2.0: A Sacred Cow Dung Open Directory is a great example of the potential explored in the early excitement of Web 2.0 in 2006. Not only does this site showcase the potential of the "open" approach, it is a tremendous collection of information on new approaches that were taking root two years ago.

Web2MemeMap from Flickr

The Meme

A meme -a new word for self-propagating units of cultural information - is a great example of the new Web 2.0 world, where people are connected and enabled to circulate ideas at the speed of light.

The "meme map" above is an early attempt to forge a group consensus on the concept of Web 2.0. Note the fluid, dynamic nature of the Web. The Web is vast, decentralized, democratic, and dynamic, changing and evolving before our very eyes. The Web has become transcendent, so we must approach it peripherally to grasp and describe it.

Web 2.0 is actually a meme itself. It created quite a buzz in 2005 and 2006, but has been criticized as one more example of the Gartner Hype Cycle, which sees exaggerated interest in any new technology typically followed by a commensurate dramatic fall off of interest, then a discovery of true value as understanding of the technology and its utility takes hold. Much of the material available to understand Web 2.0 is indeed from the 2005-2006 time period.

Web 2.0 Tag Cloud image from Wikipedia

Web 2.0 Applications

One way to understand Web 2.0 is to look at software applications that embody the new Web approach.

MySpace and facebook are emblems of the social networking trend, where the Web is used in new ways to connect people with other people.

Google Maps is a powerful tool that puts the user out in space, looking down on the planet.

Flickr lets us all share our photos with each other; YouTube does the same with our home movies.

Del.icio.us introduces the concept of tagging and bookmarks, more Web-oriented ways to label what we put out on the Web, and find what we're looking for. Looking at information organization is a good departure to better understand Web 2.0.

Tagging, bookmarking, and tag clouds, like the one in the graphic above, are new ways of organizing information into folksonomies, a means to access information more accommodating to the decentralized nature of the Web than the traditional taxonomies of static categories and subcategories.

David Weinberger's book, Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder shows that the way we deal with information has transformed with a maturing Web.

Search Engines provide us a tool so that we no longer have to have "a place for everything and everything in its place," at least when it comes to the digital "everythings" in our lives. We can leave them in a "big, messy pile," and when everything is tagged with descriptors, we just need a good search engine and a knack for describing our search problem to find what we're looking for - we don't need to remember where we filed the item.

According to a review on Boing Boing, we've traditionally divided the world into categories, topics, and hierarchies because physical objects need to be in one place or another (they can't be in all the places they might belong). But computers and the Internet turn this approach on its head: because a computer can "put things" in as many categories as they need to be in, at little to no cost, and because individuals can classify knowledge, tasks, and objects idiosyncratically with "tags," the hierarchy, best characterized by the Dewey Decimal system we grew up with in libraries, has become an outdated mode to organize information - at least when it concerns digital information.

Web 2.0 Principles and Lessons

Tim O'Reilly laid out these underlying principles that led him and his colleagues to come up with this terminology and the lessons learned with this new "Web 2.0 perspective." (see What Is Web 2.0. Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software, published on-line on September 30, 2005).

1. The Web is a platform where the value of the software is proportional to the scale and dynamism of the data it helps to manage, i.e., build bridges to more data, not fences around your data (e.g., Google). Leverage customer-self service and algorithmic data management to reach out to the entire web, to the edges and not just the center, to the long tail and not just the head (e.g., Overture and AdSense). The service automatically gets better the more people use it (e.g., BitTorrent).

2. Embrace the power of the web to harness collective intelligence, so that network effects from user contributions are the key to market dominance (e.g., Wikipedia). Blogs are the best example of this principle. ... like Wikipedia, blogging harnesses collective intelligence as a kind of filter. What James Suriowecki calls "the wisdom of crowds" comes into play, and much as PageRank produces better results than analysis of any individual document, the collective attention of the blogosphere selects for value.

3. Data is the next Intel Inside, as data become the building blocks for Web 2.0 applications (e.g., GoogleMaps). O'Reilly envisions a coming battle over control as data owners line up against applications that seek to leverage that data.

4. End of the Software Release Cycle. When software is viewed as a service rather than a product, operations that ensure service quality become a core competency, users become co-developers, and development moves from an episodic activity characterized by releases, to a constant activity marked by fluid updates.

5. Lightweight programming models drive several shifts, lightweight programming models that allow for loosely coupled systems, a preference for syndication over coordination, and designs that anticipate being hacked and mixed on the back end (designers start the process and let the hordes of smart programmers leverage their creativity to continue the process beyond the original vision, in new - and unpredictable - directions).

6. Software Above the Level of a Single Device is a paradigm shift required by web-based businesses, where the web and web services pull together resources to provide a service not possible without a network paradigm. iTunes and TiVo are examples of services that manage data as a service and leverage network dynamics.

7. Rich User Experiences. As new applications are written with the Web as a platform, the creators can leverage not only the new capabilities that network dynamics make available, but also the best of the old PC-based applications, which results in a delightful, new, rich user experience. This transition provides new companies with a great opportunity, and incumbents with an ongoing challenge.

Adapting to a New World Order

Graham highlights three points in his blog about Web 2.0.

First, he says consider the new ways of designing Web applications that are more intuitive and easier to use, with the help of tools like Ajax.

Second, he says that democracy matters in the Web 2.0 world, highlighting things like Wikipedia and blogs, where normal people have access through the Web to make a difference, to gain an audience, and to impact the business world without having to go through the establishment, VCs, or an editor.

Finally, Graham says that the new mantra of "Don't Maltreat Users" is vital to Web 2.0. When an average Joe can reach millions through the Web, millions who interact at their leisure, it makes good business sense for a Web 2.0 business to be as affordable and user-friendly as it can be, to prevent competitors from undercutting the business plan and to keep those millions coming back. If a Web 2.0 business is not on its toes, its audience can fly away in a heartbeat. Respect for the customer has moved to the front of the line.

This lack of initial "stickiness" is a huge difference between the old and new worlds on the Web. In the Web 2.0 world, there are severe and immediate consequences for not putting one's best foot forward with customers. That's good news for customers, bad news for more traditional, less hyper competitive businesses and organizations.

The rapid advances being made with Web 2.0 companies should indicate to cities the pace of change and changing expectations. The days of of playing it safe and getting by with minimal change as a late adopter are ending, or at least, they carry an ever higher cost.

City officials, just like private sector business people, must recognize the need to adapt to the trends expressed by Web 2.0 companies because citizens are users and increasingly will have these same tools at their disposal.

The environment is changing more rapidly than we think and the business and political structures and practices that we are used to will not be the same in 10 years, maybe even in five years.

At the risk of understating the case, the internet and the World Wide Web are intricately connected. Just as computer software and hardware progressed in tandem throughout the early days of the Computer Age, we see the internet and the World Wide Web evolving in similar fashion.

Continuous extension of the broadband internet, bringing more and more Web surfers onto the Ethernet waves, will hasten the changes discussed in this analysis of the evolving World Wide Web. Expansion of broadband will be helped along by technologies like Wi Fi Mesh and WiMAX, two technologies that are driving accelerated adoption of community broadband.

City leaders can no more choose to avoid the changes of the evolving Web than individuals can. We can turn away, but evolution will progress apace. We withdraw from this march at our own risk, making catching up that much harder to do when we're finally compelled to act.

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