The best thing about Web 2.0 is that… nobody knows what the hell it really means. Even the ones who coined the term are still struggling to find a compact definition. And this is the true beauty and power of Web 2.0—it makes people think.
And anything that gets this many people talking, arguing, debating, and most importantly—thinking—is a really good thing. An amazing thing. Because each time someone fires a single neuron deciding whether there even is such a thing as Web 2.0 or whether it’s just all marketing hype, is a moment in which that person gains knowledge and understanding. Not because someone shoved a perfect, high-resolution definition down their throat, but because the person was virtually forced into figuring it out for themselves.
Real knowledge and understanding is the product of a co-creation.
A joint effort between a brain and… something else. That something else can come in many forms—experimentation, conversation, studying, reading, synthesizing, etc. And some of the deepest, richest opportunities for new knowledge co-creation are those forced on our brains by low-resolution but compelling ideas, pictures, and concepts. And Web 2.0 has to be one of the most thought-provoking memes in recent history. Thinking has an absolute value all by itself, even if the thought provoked is simply “That’s complete and utter crap!”
I have no idea what Web 2.0 really means. But the metacognitive effect of the Web 2.0 meme is one we can all learn from. After all, many of us would kill to get this many people thinking and talking. 88 comments on a short list of what something is not? Think about that…
If you’re trying to help someone learn, inspire them, motivate them, engage them, involve them, or just get some kind of a reaction beyond mental and emotional flatline, turn down the gain in strategic places. Good teachers, filmmakers, novelists, advertisers, and storytellers know this. It is part of what makes cartoons so compelling.
Value of thought
In the classic (must read) Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud suggests that the more abstract (as opposed to photorealistic) nature of cartoons allows the viewer to identify with the character. An abstract, iconic face could be… almost anyone. But as photorealism increases, the likelihood of the user seeing himself in the character decreases. A cartoon happy face could be me. A photo real image of a 25-year old male with cropped hair, a beard, and a pierced nose is clearly not.
But it’s not just about whether you can imagine yourself as the character. In novels, for example, even with fairly explicit descriptions of the characters, our brains can’t help but supply the details. We literally create the characters in our minds, and that’s a big part of what keeps us engaged.
Advertisers use this notion of low-resolution with tricks as simple as using black and white (or very desaturated colors) rather than full vibrant for a sensual print or television ads. When the ad is full-color, high res, our brains can just kick back. But when the image is missing information, such as color, our brains can more easily become sucked into the image, supplying the pieces.
Filmmakers use this in everything from cinematography to whether the ending is fully resolved. I saw A History of Violence last week, and walked out with the rest of the audience talking about what the ending meant, and speculating on what happened next. Clearly nothing happened next…the story was over! But our brains couldn’t help spinning out scenarios and filling in the things that weren’t said at the ending. Had they given the movie a nice Hollywood style ending, where everything is wrapped up complete with a bow, we would have left the theater satisfied, but with nothing left to think about (unless the film left other holes).
Good teachers use this—they leave holes. They ask learners to fill in the blanks. They use a smackdown learning model that forces learners to choose between multiple and potentially conflicting points of view. They don’t lead users step-by-step down a carefully crafted, everything is supplied path. They send them out to explore, possibly even nudging them down a garden path that will lead to surprises (including failures) they never expected.
Many of us tend to think that more is more. That the more detail we provide, the better it is for our users and learners. Sometimes that’s true, especially with reference material. But if you’re trying to get people to learn, think, remember, engage, understand, grow… less is better. Strategically removed, hidden, or temporarily withheld content can mean the difference between passive, surface learning and involvement and deep, lasting, and understanding.
Our brains are wired to fill s*** in. That’s what they do, and they can scarcely help it. Mind Hacks is loaded with examples of ways in which our brains supply missing information, often without our conscious awareness. But you can use this to your advantage when you’re trying to get someone involved, and especially when you want them to learn.
Yes there’s a huge danger that if you’re not careful and strategic you’ll just piss people off. Withholding content to help draw the user’s brain in is certainly risky, and doesn’t belong in places like, say, technical specs or some aspects of an interface. And Tim O’Reilly has certainly taken the heat for the whole Web 2.0 thing. But he’s gotten more people talking, thinking, and even creating new things as a result. Had the Web 2.0 meme come down as a perfectly defined, high-resolution description with no room for user interpretation, it would have been far weaker. As it stands, Web 2.0 can never be said to mean absolutely nothing, because the brain power it takes someone to reach that conclusion had value.
A thin Introduction to Web 2.0
The Web, version 1.0, and the forgo-profit-for-market share companies that inflated it past the bursting point are now distant memories. Today, a newish set of internet technologies and fresh philosophies on how to harness the interconnected nature of the network are gaining significant attention from consumers and venture capitalists. It’s the web, version 2.0, or Web 2.0 as it has been dubbed by many. Online companies and services are harnessing the network effect of the web combined with syndication, micro-content, social networks, collective intelligence and open standards to change the face of interactivity both online, and offline. There will be serious implications for businesses focused on information and people. So what is the Web 2.0? Will it make as big a splash on the future of business as its hypes predicts? What companies are poised to take advantage of the trend? And who are most vulnerable to the new upstart Web 2.0 companies and the business models of the new web world?
The First Appearance of Web 2.0
Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: 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 going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences.
It is hard to pinpoint the moment of Web 2.0’s emergence – because there was not one. There was no release of a single new technology. There was no single economic insight or business model that completely disrupted existing markets. There was no industry consortium that defined a new standard. If forced to pick a moment, perhaps Google’s IPO will serve historically as the marker – in the same way that Netscape’s IPO’s is often used to signify the birth of the dot com era.
Formally, “Web 2.0” as a label was first used by Tim O’Reilly and Dale Dougherty of O’Reilly Publishing. The story goes that the two were brainstorming about the shared characteristics of today’s successful internet companies compared with the characteristics of the pre-dotcom bubble companies of 2000. Their brainstorming led to the birth of a conference – Web 2.0 (http://www.web2con.com/web2con/), which was held in October of 2004. The evolution of internet focused companies and services in the 13 months since that conference have helped to reinforce – and extend – their observations.
The list below is a summary of many of the common features of typical “Web 2.0″ sites. Clearly, a site doesn’t need to exhibit all these features to work well, and displaying these features doesn’t make a design “2.0″ – or good!
I have some of these factors for Web 2.0:
1. Simplicity
2. Central layout
3. Fewer columns
4. Separate top section
5. Solid areas of screen real-estate
6. Simple navigation
7. Bold logos
8. Bigger text
9. Bold text introductions
10. Strong colours
11. Rich surfaces
12. Gradients
13. Reflections
14. Cute icons
15. Star flashes
The great sites above share the following design features:
* Simple layout
* Centered orientation
* Design the content, not the page
* 3D effects, used sparingly
* Soft, neutral background colours
* Strong colour, used sparingly
* Cute icons, used sparingly
* Plenty of whitespace
* Nice big text
From the above whole information, I concluded that may be this is called Web 2.0
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