Why Dare, Joel, and Don Are Wrong About Web 2.0 (web2.wsj2.com)

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Why Dare, Joel, and Don Are Wrong About Web 2.0

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It was with trepidation and downright disappointment that I read the recent posts from Dare Obesanjo, Joel Spolsky, Don Box giving into the anti-Web 2.0 hype. While I have utmost respect for all three of them and they are very accomplished people in their own right, I also think they are dead wrong about the next generation of the Web.

What they are utterly failing to do is separate the wheat from the chaff. I can appreciate their innate (and understandable) distaste for the hype and bubble mindset of some Web 2.0 marketing by a few overheated folks who are repetitively broadcasting vague mantras about Web 2.0 memes. But this really hurts the folks doing genuine, hard work in the trenches to make it happen, or the people trying to get others to pay attention and act on the very exciting and useful ideas in Web 2.0.

Especially, I find the criticism stinging because Web 2.0 deals with a vitally important problem in the IT industry that is still pandemic today: the fact that most software systems fail to properly take into account the most important part of the system: the people that use it. Web 2.0 addresses this concretely and specifically. I worry very much that telling people that Web 2.0 isn't real, across the board, will just send people back to do what so many were doing before: pushing whatever they wrote in front of their users because they lacked a specific set of functional practices to guide them to design intrinsic user engagement into their software. This is what creates the most valuable systems possible.

Never mind that Web 2.0 shows how traditional platforms are quickly becoming less important and most everything is moving to the Web. In this way, Web 2.0 provides a host of truly useful design patterns and business models you really should be aware of as you move into the future. Evil stuff, I know (not!).

Anyway, quite real and very grassroots things are happening in the Web 2.0 space today, like it or not. And it does everyone a disservice to throw out all the value to get rid of a few loud, obnoxious people. Especially since Don, Dare, and Joel are recognized industry leaders that people actually listen to, it's unfair to tell people not to pay attention to some very signficant things that are happening.

In the end, we have to appreciate the people who are actually delivering on the Web's next generation right now (call it Web 2.0 or not.) Terrific new products like Flickr, del.icio.us, Digg, tech.memorandum, Bindows, and Backpack and older existing ones like eBay, Amazon, and Google have thousands of people hard at work delivering innovative and incredible capabilities to everyone's doorstep right now.

I have no problem with people criticizing Web 2.0 marketing and venture captial hot air, but when Joel actually makes relatively uninformed and incorrect statement that Web 2.0 is "not a real concept", it's a blanket condemnation that doesn't have facts behind it. Folks like Tim O'Reilly have painstakingly defined it and what's more, if I may belabor the point, Web 2.0 is really about a set of best practices that already exists today and made the Web 1.x companies successful. That's pretty difficult to refute in the end.

So yes, it's sad that some selfish people attach themselves to just a few pieces of the Web 2.0 practice set and repeat them over and over endlessly but it's no worse than SourceForge having tens of thousands of inactive projects, or the marketplace weeding out a bunch of underperforming products and services. The industry will make its decision and if there's nothing to the Web 2.0 ideas, then nothing will happen. But that just hasn't been the case, there is enormous interest, proven value, and there are also a few people trying to make a buck without doing much work. Let's agree to encourage the the first two and ignore the last. And not send people in the wrong direction. Please.

Technorati: web2.0

posted Saturday, 22 October 2005

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