While
I’ve been busy profiling
international “web 2.0” startups and products, Techcrunch has put together a video
documentary that explores web 2.0 in Silicon Valley. This seems to be aimed at
mainstream business people, telling them what this web 2.0 thing is all about – and
positioning the Techcrunch brand at the center of it. Definitely a good strategy (as
always) from Mike.
It is funny however to see Mike back on the web 2.0 bandwagon, after both he and I swore off the
term earlier this year. Mike says web 2.0 is about removing friction from web apps and
his interview subjects all chime in with their varying interpretations. One of them hit
the nail on the head when he said that web 2.0 is a marketing term. That is how I
think of it these days too – it’s a catch-all phrase for the current era of the
Web.
But really, all the definitions are valid – and indeed the way the video is edited
plays on this (lots of quick cuts from definition to definition, which only goes to show
how amorphous – but exciting – this web 2.0 thingy is). It’s kind of like if Jon Stewart
of The Daily Show profiled Web 2.0, this is the kind of video he’d make. By which I mean there’s a nice line of self-referential humor going on in the video. So that’s a
compliment 🙂
Of course this reinvigoration of the web 2.0 term is only going to rile up the
snark blogs, but that goes with the territory. I learned that the hard way last year.
I think that’ll be water off a duck’s back for Mike – he seems to deal with it much better
than me.
Mike brings up an interesting topic during the video, Ajax vs Flash. As he said, both
enable a great user experience. I see (via Slashdot) that Adobe
is celebrating the 10th anniversary of Flash – News.com has an article looking at the
company’s
plans for the future of Flash. This goes to show how many varying – in some
ways contrasting – technologies are caught up in the web 20 hype. One of the mistakes all
of us made last year when everyone tried to define Web 2.0, is that it was in many ways
definition by exclusion – Ajax is web20 and Flash is not, etc. Obviously that’s a silly
way of thinking of it, so I’m pleased that Flash and similar desktop technologies are now
in the hype mix.
Anyway, these days my own blog Read/WriteWeb is
focused on Next Generation Web technologies – which goes way beyond web 2.0 😉
