Is Web 2.0 a bubble?

[蘇伯方]

因為這文章標題下的好，被騙進去看...不過沒什麼重大想法

Web 2.0到底是科技泡沫還是真的是重大改變呢？其實都不是，就像現在再也不可能回去使用PE2一樣，web 2.0很多東西跟web 1.0一樣，只是介面、互動的演進，讓web再也不可能走回頭路了。這些進化比討論web後面的版本號碼重要多了。

Is Web 2.0 a bubble? 

That's really what we've been debating the last few days.

Are we onto something here, are the ideas behind Web 2.0 real, powerful, going somewhere, or is this another bubble like the one that grew in the 90s and then popped in Y2K?

I think the answer to both is Yes. But there are a couple of catches. Web 2.0 and Web 1.0 are the same thing. A lot of people seem to think there's something new, but there isn't. All the two-way technology of Web 2.0 was invented and pioneered while the 1.0 bubble was building and popping.

So Web 2.0 is every bit as real as the original web was. Ask TBL if there is such a thing as Web 2.0. He should be able to tell you that it was always part of the vision of the web that it be open to everyone to write and publish. If you go back before the web, to word processing and spreadsheets, who could imagine a one-way word processor? A graphics program that could only view but not create graphics? Feh. PCs were very much two-way things too.

Now, will there be a bubble? Yes, of course, read the VC blogs, they're basically telling you they're running out of deals they're willing to fund. And who doesn't think the growth of Google is going to slow at some point? Don't we all know that web advertising is a scam? A friend who writes for a very big news site said the other day that he had never clicked on an advertising link. Even people whose salaries are paid by the advertising industry think it's a scam. And scam is just another word for bubble.

But the two-wayness of the web will continue after the VCs leave us, again, after missing the point, again. The purpose of this place is not to make them money, no matter how much they believe it. The first time around we believed them. This time around, they look like just another self-centered group of bloggers, oblivious to all the other self-centered groups of bloggers in their midst. It's all those groups that's the real story of the web, no matter what version number you put after its name.