What, just 10, you say? For now, that’s where we’re drawing the line, though we’re sure there are dozens more ways that Web 2.0 affects the way we work, live, compute, connect, and communicate. Here, for your perusing pleasure, is our list:
10) Who Am I Today?
Create an avatar to get a Second Life. Use anonymity to flame opponents or razz friends. Online identities are a lot more fluid than they are in the real world.
9) That Huge $ucking $ound
Venture capital has flooded the market, fueling both clever and dubious entrepreneurs on a level not seen since the first Internet bubble of 2000. Now if some .com could somehow reverse oil’s big run-up…
8) Thingamajigs, Doohickeys on the Way
Wikis, widgets, applets, mashups, and dashboards have transformed desktops and GUIs.
7) OMG!
Emoticons and IM shorthand have entered the popular vernacular, even popping up in high school English compositions.
6) Suddenly, Those Spring Break 2003 Photos Aren’t So Fun
Employers and recruiters use Google and popular social networking site searches as part of due diligence on prospective employees.
5) Attack Mode
We don’t just get spammed anymore – say hello to pharming, phishing, and vishing (voice-over-IP phishing).
4) The E-Generation Gap
You “talk” to your teenager on each other's MySpace pages. “Private data” is only what you show 800 “friends.”
3) Infinitives We've Come to Love
To Skype, to RSS, to podcast, to blog, to Flickr, to GPS...
2) Poor Man's TiVo
Forget to set the DVR? Click on YouTube, the world’s largest, virtual broadcast network, for American Idol caterwauling or Jon Stewart’s latest.
1) New Buying Habits
iTunes is to eBay as Ellen is to Maury Povich.
What are the cornerstones of this Brave New World Wide Web? Here are what we consider some of the major building blocks:
And as we really dug into our Top 10 list, we began to realize there’s a fine line between pervasive and invasive. While the Internet’s pervasive, its many ancillary technologies can come to feel invasive. They cross personal and professional lines without regard for what’s in our daytimers and calendaring apps. Web 2.0 is an always-on world, whether it’s IM brainstorming with a colleague, pausing a YouTube video on your iPhone to take a call from your kid, or Skyping with a potential new supplier 10 time zones away.
We’re infinitely more connected in the Web 2.0 world, whether it’s DSL, 3G wireless, or that OC-192 line your CEO just had to have for the bragging rights. We’re probably more productive as a result. But are we communicating any better? Are our work and personal relationships improved? Are we happier as individuals, or even as a culture?
Heady stuff.
We’ll leave those questions to the sociologists, or even Dr. Phil. We’ll also leave them to you. Tell us what you think about our picks – where we got it right, and where we missed the boat entirely. Make up your own list, if you think you’re so smart. But share it with us. Share it with your Facebook friends. Slashdot and Digg it til your fingers bleed.
After all, it’s what we do now in the world of Web 2.0.
— Contributing to this report were Nicole Ferraro, Site Editor, and James Johnson, ThinkerNet Editor, Internet Evolution.
Next Page: 10) Who Am I Today?
When you're ready to admit that your first, physical life is an abysmal failure, the Internet is there to offer you a cushion, a second chance – a Second Life, if you will. In fact, it's become so common to have a virtual existence that the blogerati and the tech-minded have deigned to designate our real lives – the trivial ones without flying capabilities – as simply RL.
Second Life is more than just a game, of course. It can often be an extension of your RL. For example, back in December, Paul Levinson in his ThinkerNet blog discussed his virtual book store in Second Life, where RL human beings (HBs) send their three-dimensional self-representations to ooh and ahh at his book readings – without their ever having to leave mom's dingy basement.
In his interview with Internet Evolution, Philip Rosedale, founder of Second Life, said he anticipates virtual world populations to "grow by approximately two orders of magnitude." Rosedale hailed the virtual existence, saying oftentimes business conducted within Second Life is even more effective than in RL (and the cybersex isn't bad either!).
But in all of this virtual pretending, we have to stop and wonder: What does your avatar say about you? Is it your digital double? Or is it representative of your alter-ego? For some, avatars can be like a digital-age Halloween costume: the more appealing masks we wear when we want to forget that we're really a balding forty-eight year old postal worker with eczema and hammer toes, or what have you.
Whether or not you've yet to embrace Second Life, one thing is for sure: We need to get our acts together in First Life before we move on to Third.
Next Page: 9) That Huge $ucking $ound
The major stock indices may hiccup and burp, while prices of oil and gasoline reach new, stratospheric highs. But has all this economic uncertainty turned venture capitalists into bears? Not where the Internet’s concerned.
Of the $7.1 billion in funding for U.S.-based startups in 1Q08, a little more than one third ($2.6 billion) was earmarked for technology companies, according to recent statistics from the National Venture Capital Association . That’s only a slight dip below the $2.84 billion in the previous period and is the fifth richest quarter since 2001, according to the association.
Despite some entrepreneurs’ predictions of micro-lending growth for online startups, big bucks are still chasing the next Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) or Facebook . And wireless doesn’t appear to be grabbing as big a piece of the pie as some expected.
Money may continue to pour into the sector, despite a bumpy market, but there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that overall valuations have peaked and, in fact, are sliding downward. Witness the difficulty Microsoft and Yahoo had in coming to terms on a deal. More recently, Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) CEO Mark Hurd defended the 25 percent premium HP offered for Electronic Data Systems Corp. (EDS) (NYSE: EDS) stock, given the 30 percent slide in EDS’s share price since January.
Is VC money sustaining the inflation of a new .com bubble? Maybe. Is it siphoning capital away from “green” ideas and services, pharmaceuticals, or other investment-intensive sectors? Probably. But until the Ciscos, Microsofts, and IBMs of the world start on an extended earnings slide, don’t expect investors to bolt from Internet startups anytime soon.
Next Page: 8) Thingamajigs, Doohickeys on the Way
Remember your first "cookie"? Google does, as do a lot of other Websites, and for the record, it didn't have any chocolate chips in it. These cookies are one of the Web's most widely used euphemisms for a piece of software that allegedly enriches the Web-browsing experience. Cookies opened the door to Java beans and Applets; if only some IT vendor had concocted software-based drumsticks, we might have had a virtual picnic.
In the Web 2.0 world, cookies have given way to all sorts of desktop code that masks complexity with inventive names like:
It's this sort of flexibility and hybrid nature that helps fuel much of the innovation we see and use in Web 2.0. But in some instances, the hype has gotten too far ahead of what's real and deliverable. That's easy to do when the talk turns to opening up the APIs on something as cool as the iPhone, turning it into a phaser (all together now: "Set to stun..."), a food processor, and the equivalent of Playstation 4.
That's the sort of doodad we'd snap up in a heartbeat.
With the better portion of our lives spent within the confines of a 4x4 IM or text message box, a bit of vernacular-overlap in real life (RL) conversations is to be expected (e.g., drawing emoticons on a napkin at dinner in lieu of exercising one's smile muscles).
But according to a Pew Internet study, today's students have gone as far as to "LOL" within the bodies of school papers.
But, hey, perhaps it's not such a bad thing. Think of it this way: Today's students are preparing to enter a workforce where the IM is often a preferred method of communication. It's more than likely they'll be sucking up to their boss with an "ROTFL" in the near future. So if school is supposed to be prepping them for the world o' work, they might as well drop an emoticon or two within a term paper. In fact, they should get extra points for professionalism!
Of course, we kid. But, in truth, we are living in an age where our idea of communication has been adjusted to fit our digital lifestyles: The quicker you can say something, to the most people, the better. Ironically, in an era defined by mass communication, it seems we've lost some respect for the traditional written and spoken word.
Scoff if you will at the impact of always-on, textual messaging on our lives, but when even the Pope gets on board, deciding to proselytize via "texting," it's time to admit there's a cultural revolution afoot.
Next Page: 6) Suddenly, Those Spring Break 2003 Photos Aren’t So Fun
Let’s face it: In the world of Web 2.0, it'll take more than a glowing reference from a friend to help land that new job. It’s probably a good idea to spruce up your online profile, too. That's because a growing number of recruiters and hiring managers are relying on Internet search engines and online networks to assess candidates during the hiring process.
Today, job seekers will have to decide whether that outrageous social network profile they vaguely remember setting up a while back will make them look foolish and hurt their employment chances.
ThinkerNet contributor Chris Minnick recommends taking control of your online identity by "scrubbing" yourself. Like it or not, social networking sites that include your personal or professional profile are not only available for spammers, but for recruiters as well.
A recent report by the National Association of Employers and Colleges notes that nearly 17 percent of employers responding to NACE’s Job Outlook 2008 survey reported plans to use social networking sites as part of their recruiting efforts. In a similar survey conducted in the fall of 2006, 11 percent of employers reported such plans.
Generally, employers want to know whether prospective employees will be a good fit for the company. Recruiters are looking to eliminate candidates with negative history – such as being involved in legal proceedings, having suspended licenses, or having been a Girl Gone Wild. In his ThinkerNet blog, Ira Winkler describes how Web 2.0 search tools make it possible for anyone to obtain an instant criminal background check on another person.
Web 2.0 is a virtual fishbowl – and job candidates who expect to be hired better clean up their online act.
Prank callers who dialed a number, got someone to answer, then hung up without saying a word now seem – dare we say it? – quaint. [Ed. note: Try socially retarded.]
If spammers were the bane of the Web in its early days, then botnets – armies of infected or "zombie" PCs that send junk email – are their Web 2.0 counterpart. "Social engineers" who'd chat up the underworked receptionist for logins and passwords have been replaced by voice-over-IP phishers (or "vishers") able to spoof someone else's identity for the purpose of getting others to give up lots of personal information.
Phishing – the use of those fake but authentic-looking emails from Bank of America demanding you re-enter your birthdate and Social security number – is less à la mode as more users have wised up to this scam. But its new cousin – pharming – performs the neat trick of domain spoofing or IP spoofing to hoodwink hapless users into giving up passwords, credit card numbers, the keys to Fort Knox, whatever you got. We have no doubt that online attackers aren’t even close to exhausting the possible variations on these kinds of spoofing attacks.
The other big difference among attackers of the Web 2.0 variety? Bragging rights are no longer the prize; these rogues are in it for the money.
It's all proof positive that the bad guys keep pace with every single technological advance. In that sense, network and desktop security is a constant escalation of: assault, protective measure, new assault, new protective measure... It's like the online version of Spy vs. Spy, but with a lot less dynamite.
Next Page: 4) The E-Generation Gap
We now live in an era where the most sensitive, job/relationship/life-endangering content is all uploaded to the Internet as user-generated profile fodder. For teens, the photos they'd once burn or hide beneath their bed sheets from their parents are now must sees on their MySpace and Facebook home pages.
Contrary to their kids' desires, however, parents, future employers, and teachers aren't sitting by idly. More parents are "friending" their kids on sites like MySpace and Facebook in laughably futile attempts at keeping in touch (and keeping tabs).
In fact, our lives have become so cluttered with incessant chatter and constant updates that some families, accepting that their kids are Internet addicts, have adopted tools like Twitter in order to keep their families abreast of what's for dinner. Finding it impossible to compete for attention with the ROTFLs and the steady flow of flirtatious emoticons, it seems succumbing to signing on is necessary for parents to stay involved in their teens' lives.
Similarly, sites like Facebook are also being adopted in the workplace for communicational purposes – because the phone, email, IM, and (dare I mention the archaic) face-to-face communication weren't good enough.
Of course, friending Mom, Dad, and the CEO on MySpace can be problematic: What about all of that private profile data we don't want our parental and professional overlords to see?
Thankfully, we live in a delusional age where "privacy settings" ease us into securely posting potentially self-harming content on the Internet. So long as we can allegedly manage who sees what, the Internet is a perfectly acceptable database to post nude photos or documents declaring our allegiance to Russian spy groups. Surely there can be no bug in the impeccable Internet system that would allow my private data to get into the wrong hands!
Particularly as we begin to embrace data portability, it will become increasingly difficult to manage who sees what and where.
Next Page: 3) Infinitives We've Come to Love
What did we do before iPods blasted open the world of online audio? Billboards and skywriting aside, how did we share our many deep thoughts with the world? And just how were we supposed to know when Chicken Fancier had been refreshed with new articles and pictures?
Thanks to Web 2.0, we are now able, respectively, to podcast, to blog, and to RSS. E-living is easy living.
There's plenty more where that came from. Purists may hate us for turning Skype from a noun to a verb. But use VOIP to Skype with someone 12 hours ahead and not pay a cent, and you may do other things that make William Safire's hair stand on end: to Flickr; to GPS; to whitelist...
This isn't just about being more useful – developers, service providers, and device makers are making Web 2.0 more fun to use. Yes, we know all about the iThis and YouThat, but frankly, we'd rather be entertained than have our vanity indulged. [Ed. note: And we really like having our vanity indulged.]
If technology can be a "lifestyle," then it would be characterized by the ability to connect and to communicate. It's safe to say that would be true of just about any network – Web 2.0 just makes variations on those functions a lot more pleasurable.
YouTube Inc. , Google's popular video-sharing Website, has transformed into a worldwide Internet phenomenon. Taking advantage of the insatiable consumer demand for online video, YouTube is one of the biggest winners of the Web 2.0 new media generation.
To put this demand in perspective, more than 10 billion videos were viewed online in the U.S. in February 2008, according to ComScore Video Metrix service. Google sites ranked as the top U.S. video property with nearly 3.6 billion videos viewed (35.4 percent share of all videos), and YouTube.com accounted for 96 percent of all videos viewed at Google Sites.
If you consider the impact of YouTube on the exploding growth of user-generated video content, the site has established itself as the world’s largest, virtual broadcast network. It provides a platform for users to upload their favorite videos or access a countless selection of everything from new entertainment to uncommon and rarely seen film clips and TV shows.
With the millions of users logging in each day, the "YouTube effect" is clearly propelling businesses to step up their investment in broadband video and Web 2.0 multimedia techniques. In his ThinkerNet blog, Welcome to the 'Syndicated Video Economy', Will Richmond, president and founder of Broadband Directions LLC , describes how recent developments in the broadband video marketplace are pointing to an emerging "syndicated video economy."
Next Page: 1) New Buying Habits
Ellen DeGeneres’s talk show is lovable, infectious, and embraced by the masses – the same description (if we stretched it a bit) one could use for the iTunes music store, the Web 2.0 darling of the digital music arena. With almost an 80 percent market share in the online music industry, iTunes is the digital media standard that has revolutionized consumer buying habits and the way products are discovered.
In contrast, online auction site eBay Inc. (Nasdaq: EBAY) represents the former dotcom darlings that have lost some of their luster. They are falling short by not taking advantage of the evolving consumer buying habits. Ebay faces fierce challenges in a Web 2.0 era from competitors like Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) and specialty stores that are reinventing themselves to attract online shoppers.
EBay, which longs for a change in format, has become as predictable as a Maury Povich show (what a surprise, another attempt to find out who is the father of some kid!). In other words, it might be worth a visit now and then, but don’t linger too long.
Web 2.0 tools are redefining consumer buying habits and turning shopping into a social activity where people actively recommend products and brands to their family, friends, and co-workers. They’re letting retailers create a dynamic customer experience with rich Internet applications. With this toolset, many online retailers are expanding opportunities to create unique customer experiences with social e-commerce capabilities, such as reviews, wikis, and blogs.
One isn't necessarily better than the other with these old and new styles of online retailers. As Ellen and Maury have proven, there's an audience for each. How long those audiences hang around is another question.
— Contributing to this report were Nicole Ferraro, Site Editor, and James Johnson, ThinkerNet Editor, Internet Evolution.
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