There was a nice visualization of the Web 2.0 in a post at The Long Tail called Web 2.0 and The Long Tail It pointed to the original posting over on Dion Hinchcliffe’s Web 2.0 Blog called The Web 2.0 Is Here. If you read it, you’ll see both the warning against the next hype bubble, and the very example of the hype building up. I am curious about Ajax, the web being used for a rich user experience, the long tail of applications – how could I not be, being the wiki person I am? So I ordered the Ruby on Rails books, and I read the occasional page bookmarked by AadityaSood, but I can barely stand this exuberance:
“Imagine: [...] Using the entire Internet as your API for new applications. The leverage and reuse possibilities are probably boundless. [...] Trust becomes a critical service in the Web 2.0 platform (which is the entire Web) [...] Remixing data with high quality Web 2.0-friendly sources yields new possibilities and value. [...] Your Web 2.0 functionality can be reused, remixed, aggregated, and syndicated and the resulting value reintegrated back into your application.” ¹
Yikes!
Anything that starts with “Imagine!” must be suspicious. Use the *entire* Internet as your API – now that’s a big toolbox to use. I wonder about the maintenance of it all. I think I know what he means: Plugging into services other people provide on the net can be a good thing, but if you use too many services, you get into maintenance hell (people changing their services, services being offline, lags). Now if you only use a small number of high quality services, then those issues may not be too severe, but if you think of going into the long tail of services, those issues *will* bite. So these services will either not be free, or tricky to use in the long term.
What does it mean, if “trust becomes a critical service” – I agree that trusting is important. Coming from a SoftSecurity background in wikis, it is hard to see trust as a service, however. I see lots of people mistaking the words trust with security, and security with something that looks suspiciously close to Big Brother to me. I agree that trust is important. Some architecture astronauts start from the same premise, however, and want to develop frameworks to measure trust, allow people to rate each other, build a network of trust, etc. I haven’t seen an architecture that promises to answer the basic question “Can I trust this person?” without introducing a whole shitload of signing up, liabilities, data protection issues, privacy issues, and system gaming issues (groups of people abusing the system). The key point these people are missing is that trust is a difficult thing in the material world as well! How could it be simple online? (Do the number of people involved make a difference?)
“Remixing data with high quality Web 2.0 sources” – I wonder what that means, too. Will it all be available for free? Or will we just get news syndication networks in a new disguise? I guess I’m just not an optimist. Probably potential problems immediately jump at me, where as blissful visions just escape me. It seems to me that successful remixing will require some serious reform of copyright and our *use* of copyright – in other words: Even more propagation of open content and free software. Without it, remixing will remain either a dream, be illegal, or be reserved to commercial entities.
I also wonder about the “functionality” being “reused, remixed, aggregated, and syndicated and the resulting value reintegrated” – my mind translates functionality to code providing the functionality, and then I start parsing the rest: Reusing code. Hm... See The Reuse Fallacy, Or “This Will Work Because It Will Be Good If It Did”. Remixing code. Well, typical copyright usage (all rights reserved) and software patents (all your past, present, and future ideas reserved) are kind of slowing this down, I think. Aggregating code? What does that mean? I guess we’re switching to data, here. I’m not sure that aggregating means a lot beyond one level of aggregating, by the way. You can aggregate blogs into news aggregators, and filter. Or you can aggregate some feeds and display them elsewhere. But then what. Build services out of networks of interconnected feeds feeding into each other and doing something? But what would they be doing? I just lack the vision to build enthusiasm, I guess. And finally, reintegrating... My incomprehension goes full circle.
The Reuse Fallacy, Or “This Will Work Because It Will Be Good If It Did”
So, where does that leave us?
1. This is pure hype. WordMagic.
2. Hype can be important, however.
LionKimbro said as much before: “I think that enthusiasm, and it’s little brother “hype,” are honored creatures in the world.” (on HypeAndEnthusiasm)
#Web