Attention all cars. AJAX is not Web 2.0. In fact, it is in many ways in opposition to web 2.0. AJAX applications create web-pages that are less machine-readable / linkable (try bookmarking a google map). This is a mistake that I have seen some otherwise smart people making, so it’s important to clear this matter up.
Clinton agrees with me
Before we get to Web 2.0., it is useful to consider what does not characterize Web 2.0. For instance, for all of the love that rich client-side AJAX applications such as Gmail have earned, that alone does not make them Web 2.0. Simply having a Flash or WML interface or a XHTML+CSS homepage is not enough to qualify. In fact, in some cases these sites actually lock in more control over the data and manage the presentation even further.
Web 2.0
Attention must be paid
Attention is a hot topic on the internets. Most of the metadata that is used in cataloging and searching the web is very labor-intensive to create.
Google made it’s first quadrillion by being the first to use the metadata inherent in hyperlinks to catalog the web. This was, of course, awesome. But the only people allowed to contribute metadata in a google-based world are web publishers.
The trouble with tagging
In my last post, I provided links to a lot of well-written criticism of the “tag cloud” / folksonomy approach to organizing content. Yet it’s pretty clear that tag-based folksonomies make it easier to find certain types of information.
zero people want to do this
“Write a complete Web 2.0 app on my own” (via 43things.com)
And can you blame them? Much better to have a team on that kind of job.
recent innovations in search redux
Yahoo! Search blog has a nice writeup of the “recent innovations in search” panel that Rashmi organized last fortnight.
Tagging jumps the shark
Tagging (a la del.icio.us / flickr / technorati) is a clever newish technique for empowering users to organize digital content. But alas, in the world of blogging, and in the world of the west-coast tech elite, nothing is ever just a useful, good innovation. It’s always the “new new thing”, the game-changing paradigm that will eliminate all that comes before it.
Tagging jumped the shark with Clay Shirkeys overheated “ontologies are overrated” speech at ETech 2005, and since then a host of articles challenging the idea of tags as information nirvana have emerged like mushrooms after a rainstorm. Below are some choice excerpts from the backlash.
Trip report from Recent Innovations in Search BayCHI event
The BayCHI panel on Search innovation was a huge success. I’ve never seen the main auditorium at PARC so full…the aisles were full of people sitting on the floor (don’t tell the fire marshal) and 30 or so people had to watch remotely from a television in the lobby.
I’ll start by summarizing the key themes that came out in the panel discussion / questions and answer session. I’ll follow up with a blow-by-blow that captures some of the specifics of the show-and-tell that each company was allowed to do.
jonathanboutelle.com 