I’m not one for buzz words or hype. A few years ago, everything needed to be “AJAXified”, even if no one really knew what that entailed. Now it’s more generic, “how can we make things more web2.0-ish”. My background in languages/linguistics may be to blame for the fact that I like to define a concept before I talk about it. I believe for some, web2.0 means
- big bold fonts
- folksonomies - categorizations and ‘tagging’ by users
- AJAXified sites — allowing the user to interact with a web application in a ‘free-flow’ (non-linear) manner
I recently heard talk of law firms having trouble with the latest series of law school graduates. They are not used to ‘targeted researching’ - they are the google generation, used to associative information gathering.
Many new “web2.0″ sites allow users to ‘tag’ content. This allows users to collect and categorize information in ways that meet their needs, and it also provides the user with a sense of ownership of the content. For me, this is the key piece of what makes something part of ‘web2.0′. The internet initially provided information to a user, now it is a platform for users to interact WITH information.
I want to figure out how we can leverage this new way that users are using the tools that are out there, rather than trying to force them back into an old way of thinking and doing. However, the point was raised that people often evolve quicker than society [ok, that wasn't exactly the point that was raised, but that's how I'm choosing to interpret it], which means that we will be expected to continue to work within constraints we have naturally evolved beyond. Can we bootstrap it to come along with us, or must we find ways to satisfy existing processes even if they are at a more base level than we are capable of?
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