erraticwisdom

Just as a little disclaimer before I begin: I’m not chiming in as another Web 2.0 hater. I really do believe in the potential of the movement, it’s done a great deal to inform and excite the community about the future of the internet.

Now that I’ve (hopefully) taken care of violent commenters, let me explain what I think about the Web 2.0 movement. It seems to me that one of the main objectives of Web 2.0 and its associated “technologies” is to recreate the desktop interface and interactivity. The advanced animations and asynchronous requests are used to emulate an operating system environment where the user experiences an almost immediate response.

Let me give an example:
While at school one day, a friend was faced with the painful problem of connecting to AOL Instant Messenger without being able to download the program. Public site computers also blocked the major alternative – AIM Express – as a security risk. Therefore, I suggested meebo, an amazing Web 2.0, AJAX-powered instant messenging application that allows users to connect to all major chat programs right from their browser.

Meebo really is an amazing application, but my friend wasn’t able to use it for more than a few minutes. I described all the amazing features such as “window” resizing and movement, but they weren’t impressed. They kept citing what it couldn’t do and the somewhat more awkward interface that results from it being inside another window.

While meebo and other “Web 2.0” applications are clearly an enormous step forward in terms of web developement and transformation, to the average user, it was actually a step backwards. It is easy to appreciate the features of these new websites from the standpoint of a well-versed or even slightly knowledgable (in my case) web developer. Since the website emulates a desktop environment so well, the average user will treat it as such, causing some frustration when basic actions such as right-clicking, etc. do not have the expected result.

While the Web 2.0 movement may be working wonders within the community of web developers, by sparking new ideas and applications, the general public is still not ready – or, more precisely, Web 2.0 is not ready for the public. It is obviously a necessary transitional stage, as we cannot expect to leap directly into the Modern Web, but there is still alot of work left to do.