What is Web 2.0? I am sad to admit, that is a catch phrase that I mostly ignored for the past decade. After the shake up that happened with the Dot Bomb in the early 200’s, the internet was on fire with buzz words that did not mean anything! “Web 2.0 Compliant!” was my favorite. What does that even mean?
I wish that (not only I), but more people had read the Riley discussion about what was Web 2.0. How hard is it to say “By Web 2.0, we mean the model of how the internet works after the Dot Bomb shook down all the models that do not work”. I understand that some models are still emerging – I mean, no one saw in January 2002 how the Bit Torrent system would be harnessed for uses that would allow for mainstream gaming (like how World of Warcraft patches and updates their game) or even how it can be used in the back end of systems in Amazon, Microsoft and Ubermind.
Speaking of Torrenting, and the Web 2.0 model, I can not help but think about how our justice department has been working in the past decade to our model. The internet economy is not the same as a physical economy, and we are breaking the internet trying to make it so. For example, you can not crack down on the websites that allow for people to post content or share content – they have done nothing wrong other than be there! Or at the very least, they facilitate, but the users will still act in a criminal fashion if that particular site is not available. It could be that because I am a woman, but it harkens to me in this day in age about how we can not prosecute the prostitutes (well, we physically can, but we shouldn’t!), but how we should prosecute the “Johns”.
I was incredibly struck by the TED talk during the discussion about how the rules don’t fit the system, so we raise our kids to act as criminals. Has anyone else realized that this hasn’t changed? So then I have to ask (and as all the great minds and economists are working on now) how can we change the system so that it bloody well works?
Web 2.0 content has a lot to do with the free market (and by that, I mean not charging for the content). There are a LOT of success stories out there in industries that are resisting this change that I wish more people were aware of! Has anyone watched Dr. Horrible’s sing along blog? Or The Guild? Or The Legend of Neil? Or Dragon Age Redemption? These are all free to watch, you can contribute if you like, and everyone still turns a profit. I understand that I do not know everything in the world, but it seems to me that this is a proven model that has worked – so why don’t we push it and try for the next step? Say a major Hollywood film released online this way? It would be interesting to see how “Web 2.0 compliant” the world would become.
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This, my dear Megan, is the 64-dollar question: “So then I have to ask (and as all the great minds and economists are working on now) how can we change the system so that it bloody well works?”
We do that by (a) educating ourselves about the status quo, (b) finding other people who would like to change the status quo, (c) hammer out consensus and a plan of action, (d) go for it!