Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Web 2.0 v. Web 1.0

Computex and the print edition of New Media Age are running articles on P2P traffic, based on a report from Sandvine.

P2P services takes 70% of global bandwidth (BitTorrent is the main culprit). Web browsing is only 8.7% of bandwidth consumption.

I thought this was an interesting figure to add to the Web 2.0 v. Web 1.0 debate .

I read Tim O’Reilly’s seminal article and I agree: the evolution to Web 2.0, for lack of a better term is about attitude and expectation. Whether it is technology that led to a change of attitude, or that a shift in our relation to the web led to new technology is an academic debate which I will leave to the more technically endowed.

In the 90s, the web was driven by companies seeking to turn it into a giant shopping mall. Consumers are now reclaiming the web for what it was intended for: a collective space bringing people together so that they could share experience and information. Just picture this: a collection of mega websites competing to attract eyeballs v. loose networks accessible by search engines, tags and connections where you can share information, engage in conversations and co-create. I am caricaturing here but the change is quite noticeable...

This is how I understand it: Web 2.0. is a different way of looking at the web.

1 comment:

Scott Baradell said...

Well, I hate to sound cynical, but I think Web 1.0 started with all kinds of idealistic notions as well ... before it turned into a shopping mall. Web 2.0 will become absorbed in the free market system just as Web 1.0 was.