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Sun, 28 May 2006 16:24 UTC
The term “Web 2.0” is the marketing brainchild of O’Reilly Media. Yet, it has come to be associated with so many different facets of this “new” culture of the Internet we see emerging. I, like Ivo Jansch, believe that Web 2.0 is now more about a cultural shift than the technology used. It’s about the way we handle data and communicate with others. It’s about sharing ideas in an open forum. It’s about who holds the knowledge and, thus, the power—in a Web 2.0 world, everyone has free and open access to the knowledge; everyone has the power.
However, O’Reilly Media, while I have nothing against them, has made it clear that they wish to own the rights to the term “Web 2.0” (specifically with regard to its use in conference names). In this world of open data exchange and sharing, the term for this phenomenon is anything but. Tom Raftery reports that CMP Media (working with O’Reilly Media) has applied for registration of “Web 2.0” as a service mark “for arranging and conducting live events.”
Now, this doesn’t restrict me from creating a Web site and calling it a Web 2.0 site, nor does it keep me from blogging about Web 2.0. In the purest sense, this means that I cannot create a conference and use the term “Web 2.0” in the name or on any of the marketing materials for the conference. However, it does raise some concerns and begs the question: what is “Web 2.0” really about? Is it about technology, a cultural shift, or marketing hype?
If the term is merely marketing hype, then we need to abandon the term and seek a new one that is free and open for everyone to use. Yet, before we create a new term, we need to clearly define what the term means—is it about technology or a shift in our way of thinking?
Let me end by saying that I have not lost any respect for O’Reilly. I think it is absurd to expect a company not to protect a term they created and own. Furthermore, it is not ridiculous to think that someone would try to trademark the terms “Ajax” or “Ruby on Rails.” After all, these were terms created by companies—Adaptive Path and 37 Signals, repectively. They had the right to trademark these terms and have chosen not to do so. The confusion lies in the ownership of the term itself. Until now, the community has assumed that the term “Web 2.0” was sparked from a grassroots effort, that it belonged to the masses. Now, we know and understand that it was merely created to name a conference where next-generation Internet technologies would be discussed. Instead, it is the community’s own fault for grasping ahold of the term and running with it as if it were their own.
So, I’m posing this question: what are we trying to describe, and what should we call it? And, let’s not suggest things like “Web 2.1” as some have humorously done. Let’s create a real term, a descriptive one.
UPDATE: O’Reilly Media posted a response to the service mark issues a few days ago on O’Reilly Radar .
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Tags: oreilly, trademarks, trends, web-2.0
Mon, 8 May 2006 14:35 UTC
It seems I’ve been focused on OPML for the past few posts, and why not? OPML appears to be gaining a lot of attention lately. There’s even an OPML Camp in Boston later this month.
So, what’s all the fuss about? Adam Green summarizes his vision for the future of OPML on the OPML Camp blog:
I see OPML as an extremely flexible container for many types of XML and HTML data. Its simplicity and extensibility means that it can be used to bring together many types of structured content that are currently being developed on the Web, such as microcontent, attention data, identity data, and data that will eventually comprise the Semantic Web. OPML won’t replace these many efforts, it will help integrate them, by providing a common packaging mechanism.
Adam Green, OPML Camp blog
As of right now, many sites are using RSS as a common content delivery format. While RSS works for syndication, though, I think that it lacks the extensibility and context to fill the role of this “flexible container.” OPML won’t replace RSS, but it will aid in its delivery. So, I’m a little more than casually interested in seeing the application and future direction of OPML.
Along these lines, Dave Winer, launched today his new Share Your OPML service, the purpose of which is to “gather a community of subscription lists, in OPML format, and aggregate them in interesting ways.” It’s unclear to me (right now) the practical value of this service, since I was unable to discover how to actually generate OPML from the site. If the site were to provide OPML feeds for each data display, then its value would be readily apparent. Right now, I can only find an OPML feed for the Top 100 shared feeds.
Nevertheless, in the spirit of signing up for every new service out there, you can view my shared feeds here.
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Tags: opml, rss, semantic-web, web-2.0, xml
Fri, 28 Apr 2006 5:18 UTC
Well, it’s been long enough. It’s time to polish off the ol’ blog and start blogging again. So, while everyone’s down in sunny Orlando blogging about php|tek, I’m sitting right here 12 hours away (by car; 1.5 hours by plane) in Atlanta in my new home office, enjoying the scent of new office furniture—which is most likely just the scent of pressed fiberboard, or something. But, hey, I don’t care how it smells as long as it’s a good tax write-off.
Speaking of the new home office, I’ll take a short little aside to remedy something of which Lig reminded me: “if it’s not blogged, then it didn’t happen.” In short, I have a shiny, new job as an Engineer with Art & Logic, and that’s all I’ll say about that for now.
Now, for the more interesting piece of this post, as indicated by the title. Apparently, the Web APIs Working Group at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) published on April 5th a working draft for a forthcoming recommendation on the XMLHttpRequest object, the JavaScript object that gives AJAX it’s power.
The draft does not yet introduce any new features to XMLHttpRequest and serves merely to advance the purpose of the Web APIs WG, which is to document existing APIs, as well as develop new ones. Nevertheless, I think this is a great step forward for standardizing AJAX. Currently, developers must take into consideration both the (now) standard way of creating an XMLHttpRequest object:
var req = new XMLHttpRequest();
and the MSIE way of creating one (which was actually the first way of doing it, though it uses Microsoft’s ActiveX technology):
var req = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");A standard would provide grounds for agreement between browser makers and developers. Unfortunately, as history has shown, browser makers—ahem Microsoft—are wont to follow their own whims, creating their own standards. The working draft of the recommendation addresses this problem:
The XMLHttpRequest object is implemented today, in some form, by many popular Web browsers. Unfortunately the implementations are not completely interoperable. The goal of this specification is to document a minimum set of interoperable features based on existing implementations, allowing Web developers to use these features without platform-specific code. In order to do this, only features that are already implemented are considered. In the case where there is a feature with no interoperable implementations, the authors have specified what they believe to be the most correct behavior.
The recommendation will seek to provide developers with a standard form of AJAX that will work across all browsers. This is only one of the W3C’s first forays into Web API standardization, though, and it appears that they have many others planned.
The W3C has consistently provided Web developers with good, solid recommendations over the course of the past twelve years, and I laud their efforts as they continue their work by providing recommendations for Web APIs.
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Tags: ajax, standards, w3c, web-2.0
Tue, 8 Nov 2005 15:47 UTC
Via Planet Web 2.0, I found this post by Richard MacManus about an English blog discussing Web 2.0 in China: the China Web2.0 Review. Looking at the blog, it appears that China will soon host its own blogging conference in Shanghai.
Personally, I find it amazing that bloggers are continuing forward even despite recent news of censorship attempts. What’s more, Web 2.0 seems to be catching on like wildfire in China, and that’s even more astounding in light of what I’ve been discussing about information sharing and collective ownership. One would think that collective ownership would be an ideal of a socialist government, but totalitarian rule and blocking and censorship of services seems more often than not to be the norm.
Needless to say, this is a bold move for the bloggers and technologists of China. I think it’s another step towards opening up China.
From the China Web2.0 Review:
China Web2.0 Review is a blog dedicated to track and review web2.0 development in China. We will profile and review web2.0 applications, products, services and business in China, and track the buzz about web2.0 in China’s internet industry as well.
Though the definition of Web2.0 is still controversial, we believe web2.0 is not only a buzzword or bubble2.0 but an inevitable evolution of the web. And in China, one of the most potential and mysterious internet markets, web2.0 evolution is also on going and exciting us.
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Tags: China, web-2.0
Sat, 5 Nov 2005 23:02 UTC
I’ve been giving a lot of thought to Web 2.0 lately. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about tagging and collective ownership (and sharing) of information. While these aren’t necessarily Web 2.0 in and of themselves—indeed, Web 2.0 is merely (depending on your thought-leader of choice) the notion of the Web as a platform—I think they are becoming integral parts of the concept, and I think they compliment one another.
Tagging helps to organize (describe) information in a way in which it is easy for someone other than the “tagger” to find relevant data. There is no obfuscated taxonomy or nomenclature that one must figure out (like with most category- and folder-based systems), and, with the way most tag-based applications now work (i.e. del.icio.us, Flickr), others may add their own tags, so the overall value of the description increases, thus making it easier to find. Flickr even assigns a ranking to this value (which also adds in other attributes such as number of views, etc.) so you can find your “most interesting” photos. All of this works together, making it easier to share information.
So, you can see that I’ve been giving a great deal of thought to this, so it’s no surprise that Web 2.0 was the first thing that sprung to mind when I broke open my fortune cookie tonight after dinner. This was the fortune:
Doing little things well is a step towards doing big things better.
If Web 2.0 has a motto, then this is it. A typical Web 2.0 application is one that picks one thing and does it well. Then, it provides (or should) an open API for others to share in the information available from the one thing done well. As more and more of these applications pop up, there will be mounds and mounds—indeed, there already are—of rich data for all to share. This is the platform. This is the “big thing” that is made better by the “little things” of Web 2.0.
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Tags: open-information, tagging, web-2.0
Fri, 28 Oct 2005 15:18 UTC
By now, you’ve probably heard of the latest browser craze known as Flock. I call it a craze, and really it is just that; the hype for this browser came when it was announced and long before there was any code or builds to view. It seems that this kind of hype occurs all too often these days, and I even find myself wrapped up in it occasionally. And why not? It feels good to know that the industry wheels are churning again, that there’s money in the air—or, at least, the hint of it, anyway.
But is there anything to this hype? Is there anything to Flock, to Web 2.0, to AJAX, to blogging, podcasting, tagging? Truthfully, I think the jury’s still out on this. Indeed, beyond the nifty buzzword, I see what Web 2.0 promises. It represents a mounting paradigm shift in the way we view and treat information . . . but I think it’s way ahead of its time.
Web 2.0, as I understand it, not only embodies the Web as a platform, but it philosophically seems to represent an opening up of information and the free share and exchange of ideas. This almost smacks of Gene Roddenberry’s futuristic vision of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I’m not sure that we’re culturally ready for such an open (some might say “Socialistic”) approach to information.
The governments of our world are undergoing tremendous growing pains at this point in history with regard to information and intellectual property. On the one hand, we see the traditionalists and the corporations who wish to maintain a firm grasp on IP, copyright, and patents. Why shouldn’t they? These modes of protection have brought them to where they are and have made them very profitable. On the other hand are the neo-copyrightists who philosophically advocate for open information and free exchange of ideas. In the middle is a government trying to appease both sides, but, more often than not, the traditionalists have the money and, thus, the power of influence.
Can the ideals of Web 2.0 survive in this environment? I think the technology is definitely there. We can create extremely usable Web sites for the masses, and more and more, people are buying computers primarily for the business of being online—and not because of software. Indeed, the software is now online for many things, and the computer is a client to reach it. Yet, therein lies the problem: information is everywhere. Technology is forcing us to rethink our traditional approaches to information and IP. Traditionally, he who holds the information wields the most power and control. With Web 2.0, everyone collectively holds the information.
So, I followed along that lengthy tangent to come back to this: is Web 2.0 just early 21st century marketing hype, and is Flock simply riding the craze? Or could Web 2.0 represent a growing shift in cultural values—on a global scale?
There’s no doubt that Flock, at this point, is merely riding the Web 2.0 wave. After all, it’s really just Firefox with some added features that don’t particularly impress me. We’ll just have to wait and see what comes of it as it moves beyond the “Developer Preview” stages into alpha and beta versions.
As for Web 2.0—only time will tell whether it represents real social change or just good marketing.
For more on Flock, read Jim Rapoza’s “Flock Can’t Fly Yet” blog post.
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Tags: browsers, flock, open-information, web-2.0
