Usage of the Term ‘Web 2.0’

October 31st • 2 Comments • Under: Understanding Web, Web Critique • Tags: critique, Journalism, web, writing

Note: In the previous article I suggested that some writers should avoid using the term ‘web 2.0’, and thus probably wrongly implied that they don’t know what web is. The following is an explanation of what I actually meant.

If definition means “the act of defining or making definite, distinct, or clear” then the definition of ‘web 2.0’ provided by Tim O’Reilly is neither distinct nor clear. He tries to put way too many things under a single umbrella, under one next version—the 2.0—while many of these things are in a continuous development with varying speed and can not be defined by ‘versions’.

On the first page of the article he formulates the “sense of web 2.0” by giving a few examples of how web 2.0 is different from Web 1.0, like, “publishing –> participation”, “content management systems –> wikis” and “Britannica Online –> Wikipedia”.

If these are the chosen examples to illustrate the principles of web 2.0, then the arrow used between them means something different in each of the examples, which however contradicts to the use of an equal type linguistic/symbolic link among all examples. As none of the known symbols of logic are used (like ⇒ or ∈), then lets try figure out what the author meant. Read more »

Finally Some Critical Writing About the Web

October 30th • 1 Comment • Under: Web Critique • Tags: critique, Journalism, web, writing

After writing the previous article ‘What is Wrong with the Tech Journalism’ and thinking more about the portrayal of the Web by off/online journalists, I have finally found a few great articles that try to critically assess the otherwise hyped “user–generated content” and “social networking”:

• The User-Generated Content Myth by Scott Karp where he perfectly explains that an average creator of a useful web content is not an average citizen.
• The Fakebook Generation by Alice Mathias who excellently describes the reasons for the popularity of social networking sites and what they actually mean to people using them.
• Facebook Is NOT For Business also by Scott Karp where he explains why the popular view of Facebook (or any other website of kind) being useful for business and during the business is false.

More Views About the Web and Journalism

Continuing the debate over the importance of professional journalism and the rising popularity of individual publishing, there are number of different viewpoints presented in the following blog posts:

• Let’s have a real debate about Web 2.0 by Suw Charman and Kevin Anderson,
• Still going: more of the NUJ debate by Shane Richmond,
• Is the Web as weak as its weakest link? by David Weinberger,
• The NUJ and me: a considered response by Roy Greenslade,
• Hands up those who think Web 2.0 is rubbish! by Sian Claire Owen.

While I may disagree to some of the views expressed in the above articles, I still think that most of the authors would be better of without using the term Web 2.0, to make their point clearer.