Web 2.0: Hype versus Reality

By John M Grohol PsyD
February 9, 2006

The people who talk about Web 2.0 stuff aren’t the same people who use it and don’t know they’re using it. Do you think that 90% of Flickr users know they’re using something Web 2.0-ish? Do you think they care? Of course not.

If you need to describe what you’re doing as “Web 2.0,” chances are you don’t have a clue as to what makes Web 2.0 Web 2.0. “We use tags!” “We’re dynamic!” “We use AJAX!” Good for you. Web 2.0 isn’t about the technologies you use. Nor is it about the people you bring together. Nor is it about a combination of the two, thrown together in mass quantities.

I’ll tell you what Web 2.0 is about. It’s about simple, social communication, as old as email, but as new as Gmail. It’s about the seamless and elegant integration of technology to the point where the technology fades into the background and doesn’t get in the way of user interaction — of social interaction. It’s about websites that “just work” exactly as users expect them to, using their mouse on the website just like they do on their computer, to shift their space, move things around, view and manipulate information in ways that don’t make them think. Yes, it’s about people, but it’s not just about people. It’s about people doing something useful in their lives. It’s not “Oh, look, I have 1 million users in my 3rd degree network!” (Who cares?), it’s about how you find 3 new people in hundreds of millions that become your best friends (or more!). It’s about finally putting all of this great computer horsepower and data manipulation and mining to a use — human use. Stuff that matters to everyday people.

Because, guess what? People usually do a lot of their thinking for work, for school, or for enjoyment. They don’t want to come to a website and “figure it out.” That’s no fun.

And that’s why even some of the best “Web 2.0″ sites out there today are still failing in being the best examples of this idea.

It’s also why I love Jeffrey Zeldman’s Web 3.0 take on all of this. The folks who understand this will be the ones who create new sites, new services, and don’t care what others call what they’re doing. They won’t ever utter these words — they just do it, put it all together in a seamless manner, and expose data and relationships in ways never even imagined before.

Dr. John Grohol is the CEO and founder of Psych Central. He has been writing about online behavior, mental health and psychology issues, and the intersection of technology and psychology since 1992.