A reader made some provocative comments on an earlier post about Web 2.0, so I’ll repost them here:
As much as I love trying the new technology and services, very little has changed in how I use the web. Only RSS aggregation has truly offered me value. Everything else I enjoy trying out and then utterly forget it after a week. Meebo is a great example. Loved the service. Loved using it. Stopped using it a while back and had trouble remembering the name today. Gmail I still use but thread it through Outlook. Google maps and Virtual earth I use but ultimately because they have much bigger maps than mapquest. The satellite imagery I find useless. Checked out goowy last night. Awesome. I will never visit it again. I cannot think of one mashup that I have used beyond that initial curiosity phase.
Not to conflate Web 2.0 with mash-ups, but he makes a good point. Can anyone point to a mash-up that they continue to use after the first “Whoa, cool!” moment? I use Paul Rademacher’s housing maps service now and then (mostly to cringe at the prices of homes here in La Jolla), but as near as I can figure, that’s the only mash-up I use. And as far as technologies go, the only so-called 2.0 technology that has really penetrated my daily work/play life is syndication feeds, which I have waxed about many times.
So, does that means Web 2.0 is a waste, a sexy phrase to suck in venture capitalists? No, not at all, and while I’ll try to frame some comments later today or tomorrow, I’m hesitant to post more detailed thoughts on the subject as I would quickly end up talking my book (as we used to say in the brokerage business).
Related posts:
Paul: “So, does that means Web 2.0 is a waste, a s@xy phrase to suck in venture capitalists?”
Yes.
And the fact that s@xy phrases work so well should be an embarrassment to the profession.
P.S. Th@ c0mm@nt c@ns0r !s r4th@r 4nn0y!ng.
My wife and I regularly use the NYC Subway Map / Google Map mashup, but that’s the only one I can immediately think of.
While I do agree that a lot of what I’ve seen thus far lacks a coherent business model not to mention “stickiness”, I do not think that dooms the Web 2.0 movement overall. Personally, I think the key will be to develop information fusion products that drive the internet down to our desktops. These products, “personal intelligence agents” if you will, will “learn” our interests and then tactfully suggest things we might be interested in purchasing or viewing. BTW, this is the type of product we are seeking to build at Grimaldi Productions. The software is called Mentations.
There are so many new web widgets and systems out there which compete for smaller and smaller slices of attention. We hare higher thresholds to be met before we use a product for more than 15 minutes. that said, I’ve bookmarked the newsman. Pretty slick!
Martin Tibbitts
LCR Telecommunications, LLC