Why Web 2.0 Matters.

[swestrup]

I think that many of the folks thinking about the next version of the web are thinking too simply. If what they want is called 2.0, then what _sps_, hendrikboom and I have been talking about is Web 3.0. Still, this article goes a good way towards explaining why its important. If I could do any job I wanted right now, this is where I would be working.

Comments

[unsane1.livejournal.com]

Forgive my ignorance, but what is Web 2.0? I'm a little tipsy so that article wasn't exactly keeping my attention, it just sounded like a whole lotta hot air.

[swestrup]

Put simply, the current web is very badly designed. The technology its based upon sucks royally, from the TCP layer up to the html and css layout stuff. There are a bunch of features that should be in there that the current infrastructure just can't support, so folks have been talking about building a web 2.0 or semantic web as some folks have put it so that various new features could be introduced.

For example, in no particular order:

* You should be able to manipulate your view of a web page you are looking at. You should be able to add new synthetic columns to tabular data or sort by a different column.
* There should be no need to recode a web page to handle someone who is blind, or who is using a hand held device to surf the web. One page should serve all equally well.
* You should be able to log onto any internet terminal anywhere and have the net know its you. You should be able to pick up your mail, check your bookmarked sites and see things with your preferred settings, simply by being logged in.
* Links need to be typed so that you can point to, for example, just one paragraph of another page, or to a 2-second clip from the middle of a multi-media file.

The list can go on and on. Somewhere I have something like 40 or 50 features that the current web lacks.