peterme.com

i couldn't agree with you more... on all counts. a first! ;)

I agree with you. In fact most programmers I know don't like the term web 2.0. The comment I usually hear is "These technologies have been around for a while, so shouldn't we be on web 3.0 or 4.0?" Then when the philosophy is explained you get a "oh, ok". This is an example of why technologies execute the solution but do not drive the strategy or philosophy.

I too agree, Peter. Here's another example of how companies fuck up when they try to open up without understanding the philosophy behind it. My takeaway from this is something that might be the greatest challenege in spreading what's being called web 2.0...

It's hard to give up control.

I *have* heard the philosophy explained, and it's exactly the same philosophy you'd have heard driving the development of "Web 1.0", had anyone been listening at the time. Read the original Internet RFCs if you want to see some technical people write philsophically driven APIs.

Well said. I find the same thing happening with businesses trying to get on the blogging bandwagon. Setting up a blog (i.e. the technology) doesn't change your business. For a business to truly change with the times it needs to change its culture and I think the Web itself can help us here. Why? Because I think all of the values we are looking for are actually contained within the Web with regards to how it works. I'm still trying to figure out all of these cultural values but some are evident such as openness, equality, and collaboration.

In effect, if we determined the cultural values of the Web as though it was a person (or more aptly our collective cultural values) then I think we could change the culture of business which would allow many companies to move forwards into the future of change. The biggest obstacle in achieving this though is that for this to work, those advocating this cultural change need to be practicing what they preach. Why? Because most companies will not change unless they can see proof that other businesses have changed and are benefiting because of it.

The question is how many companies are truly practicing what they preach? I'd love for example to get inside of companies like 37signals though and discover what their environment and culture is like. I'm sure you'd find similarities with their culture and how the Web works today (i.e. equality and cooperation: no titles, no org chart, everyone given a voice). The thing that I'm still not seeing enough of though is openness, specifically with regards to the new buzzword word of transparency. How many companies are truly trying to become transparent and open with their customers?

"Currently, the logic behind Web 2.0 is baked into API's, RSS etc."

I'm not sure how to read this: if she means "APIs and RSS automatically provide a Web 2.0 experience", that's patently wrong. Microsoft and every other large software companies have used APIs as a lock-in technique for years, and Stewart said as much in his talk. Once you learn the MSFT APIs, it's a huge pain to change. This use of APIs to clamp down on openness is the far more common use of them. Flickr's not "more open" simply because they publish some API methods--they are more open because you could remove or change all your data in Flickr via those methods.

On the other hand, if that sentence means "people working on Web 2.0 currently mostly express those ideas via technologies like RSS and Ajax", well, I wouldn't disagree with that.