Web 1.0 vs Web 2.0

I'd like to begin with a confession - before researching this topic I thought that Web 2.0 was a software upgrade. Yes, I believed I could download Web 2.0 when I got sick of using Web 1.0.

But what does it mean when I say Web 1.0 and Web 2.0?

Web 1.0 is used to describe a type of website, and even web experience, that is one-way and static. Web 1.0 meant there was small number of publishers for a large number of readers and user-led content creation was minimal.

Web 2.0 describes the move towards networking, information sharing and collaboration using Internet technologies.

Although these definitions are broad and certainly brief, I think they demonstrate an important point to remember when discussing Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. That is - there was no dramatic change in technology to create a separate and defined Web 2.0, it was more a societal and cultural change in which the user became more actively involved in the Internet experience.

The term 'Web 2.0' was actually first used by Tim O'Reilly when thinking of a name for a conference he was holding back in 2004. He and conference co-founder Dale Dougherty formulated their sense of Web 2.0 by examples, some of them I feel are a little too technical so here are their brainstormed ideas.

By 2005, Tim O'Reilly had further clarified his defintion of Web 2.0:
"Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications & [are] delivering software as a continually–updated service that gets better the more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an ‘architecture of participation,’ and & deliver rich user experiences" (Scholz, 2008).

But then in July 2006 in an IBM developerWorks podcast, the creator of the WorldWideWeb Tim Berners-Lee said the term 'Web 2.0' was nothing but "jargon" and that "nobody even knows what it means". Berners-Lee says Web 1.0 was always intended to connect people, and indeed the point of the Web all along was to be "a collaborative space where people could interact" (IBM, 2006).

Confused? Me too.

On one hand we have Tim O'Reilly and Dale Dougherty, along with countless bloggers, researchers, academics and others in the technology business saying Web 2.0 is different from Web 1.0 and can be defined. On the other hand we have Tim Berners-Lee saying there is no Web 2.0, indeed there was never a Web 1.0 - there is just Web.

But in fact, both Tim O'Reilly and Tim Berners-Lee agree that there was a large shift in the way people interacted with technologies. The only difference is Tim O'Reilly decided to give it a name and Tim Berners-Lee did not.

To be honest this topic really had me lost. It is all just too technical and I felt I was trying to find something that was not necessarily there.

Then I read Dana Gardner's blog Scrap Web 2.0, yes, but embrace Knowledge 2.0 surely and I had a light bulb moment. This is so much bigger than whether we should apply the terms 'Web 1.0' and 'Web 2.0' (in my opinion we should, simply so everyone is on the same page), this is not just changing the way we connect - this is changing the very fundamentals of what it means to be human.

The fact that we can debate Web 1.0 vs Web 2.0; the fact that I or anyone else can blog about the topic; the fact I can access trascripts, defintions and opinions to make an informed decision; the fact that when I want to know something I immediately Google it; the fact that I can use the word 'google' and be understood.

Ten years ago the above would have been unfathomable, but I did each of those just to write this post.

Instead, "what we are up to here is actually Knowledge 2.0, and it is at least a millennial trend, and it shows every indication of having anthropologic impact. That is, Knowledge 2.0 is changing the definition of what it is to be a modern human, individually and collectively" (Gardner, 2006).

As the Web keeps changing and developing and we near the next great shift in the way we interact with technologies, the greatest change that will occur will occur within us. The people who change the technologies are the same people who will be changed by the technologies.


References

Gardner, D (2006, August 31) Scrap Web 2.0, yes, but embrace Knowledge 2.0 surely.
Retrieved 5 April, 2008 from http://blogs.zdnet.com/Gardner/?p=2340

Scholz, T (2008) Market Ideology and the Myths of Web 2.0. First Monday, 13.
Retrieved 5 April, 2008 from, http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2138/1945

Transcript of IBM interview with Tim Berners-Lee (2006, July 27) Originator of the Web and director of the World Wide Web Consortium talks about where we've come, and about thechallenges and opportunities ahead.
Retrieved 6 April, 2008 from,
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/podcast/dwi/cm-int082206.txt