Changing the architecture?

I couldn't help cringing as I read an article on Fortune Magazine online today by Jessi Hempel. Entitled 'Web 2.0 is so over. Welcome to Web 3.0', Hempel stalks the concept of Web 2.0, pounces from behind and then narrowly misses before crashing painfully to the ground. The tagline says it all: Facebook and Twitter may be more popular than ever among users, but what are they worth?

It's not about the use and popularity of social networking and blogging that is so important to Hempel, as ... wait for it.... how much money they can make. In this respect, s/he suggests, Web 2.0 has been an abject failure. Well, perhaps Web 2.0 is a failure financially, but Hempel is clearly missing the point about Web 2.0 tools and services. This is an argument reminiscent to the banal ramblings of the likes of Andrew Keen, tinged with a smidgeon of bitterness that he failed to become an ultra-rich member of the Silicon Valley Set. Hempel suggests that while we are Facebooking each other, we are ignoring all the pay-per-click ads that are loitering on the sidebars of our screens. Shame. Ironically, the Fortune page on which the post appears is positively teeming with strong-arm ads such as '1 Rule to a Flat Stomach', 'End Back Pain in 2009' and a link to seduce readers to 'try Fortune for free for 2 issues!' (Personally I found it hard to ignore them).

Well, I have some news. The whole point of Web 2.0, is that it's not about making profit or screwing over the opposition. It is not about creating killer applications either. That's because Web 2.0 is not and has never been about tools or services, many of which have been around almost as long as the Web itself. No, Web 2.0 is more about how people are connecting, sharing and communicating using the tools and services. There never was a revolution on the Web. It was always an evolution - a gradual transition across the web from a 'quagmire of stickiness' to an 'architecture of participation'. Web 2.0 is about user-generated content and community. Web 2.0 is rich and exciting because anyone can participate and contribute. If and when Web 3.0 comes along (and some would argue it is already here) it will still be about making connections, sharing and contributing. This will be done in a more intelligent and economic manner we hope, but it won't make any more money than any of the social networking tools have done. Let's leave that for the likes of Google, eBay and Amazon.

Web 2.0 services that have survived whilst others have fallen do so because they are popular and supported by their users (Wikipedia is a classic example of users funding the resource). Those that fail are subject to a virtual natural selection process - the survival of the most relevant. If it's good, it will survive somehow. Let's keep Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 (yes, and Web x.0 too) as a means of creating and maintaining our communities of interest and practice, and stop worrying about whether we can make money out of them, shall we?