WEB2.0: Content Vs Community

Tim O'Reilly defined Web 2.0 as "the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform". In the Web conference 2005, that took place in October, the web2.0 principles were described:

• The web is a platform
• The information resides in the processor
• Web effects are driven by a participation architecture
• Innovation comes from attributes distributed by independent developers
• The end of the software consolidation, permanent Beta services, permanent change.
  

Some examples that will help us understand what this transition from WEB1.0 to WEB2.0 is about are listed below:

• Britannica Online-Wikipedia (the visits to the Wikipedia, according to hitwise, outnumber 3400 times that of Encarta)
  
• Personal websites-blogs
• Directories (taxonomy)-tagging ("folksonomy")
  
• Doubleclick-Google AdSense
• Domain name speculation- SEO.

There are a set of technologies that supports this transition (CSS/content distribution, AJAX, etc), an analysis we will develop in a future post, but Web2.0 is not about technology. Web2.0 is the representation of evolution of traditional applications into web applications focused on the end user. Web2.0 is an attitude, in sync with the trend change I introduced in a previous post (Time&Money spent on searching)

Web 2.0 has been successful in significantly broadening the content available to users, but reviewing the latest data from hitwise reveals that we're still in the very early stages (and in some circles, the web3.0 terms is starting to be present).

Although there is a clear upgoing trend in the use of web2.0 applications, as shown in the graphic above, only a very small percentage of Internet activity is related to users creating and publishing content: less than 1% of visits to most sites that thrive on user-created materials are attributable as to participative users, the remaining 99% are passive visits. Examples of ratios participant/passive type of users for 3 well known applications.

We can conclude that web2.0 applications, although in obvious growth in number of visitors, has a long way to go when it comes to consolidation in terms of usage. We are offering a range of possibilities that are not being totally exploited by a large percentage of the visitor. I had previously stated that one of the reasons might be simply the fact that it is just not what the user is looking for, based on data related to the use of the Internet of each individual (the Internet Index Activity report by OPA and Nielsen/Netratings stated that 50,9% of the time was spent on content and only 30,4% in communications, including email and participation tools) but I can also think that a large number of users are not proficient in the use of the participation tools at their disposal. Are we building too complex applications? Are we making it difficult by means of adding additional steps (registration, confirmations, account creation, etc) that are not necessary?

Web X.0 should be based on the principle of simplicity.