Rethinking WEB 2.0 – Or Rejecting It
I’ve enjoyed trying out the various toys that social networking, or Web 2.0 have offered. Last FM, Flixster, CoComment, ClustrMaps and so on. But, I’ve come to two concurrent realisations. They are not contributing much to me and they are draining my time. Or, to put it another way, they don’t hold or add value […]
I’ve enjoyed trying out the various toys that social networking, or Web 2.0 have offered. Last FM, Flixster, CoComment, ClustrMaps and so on. But, I’ve come to two concurrent realisations. They are not contributing much to me and they are draining my time. Or, to put it another way, they don’t hold or add value for me.
It’s really a question of time – or the lack of it. Each Web 2.0 application requires some investment of time, to setup, maintain the programme and to evaluate and decide upon the results it gives you. Take Last FM, great idea, but in practice it didn’t prove that easy to get scrobbling to work with my iPod. As for the music recomendations, still far, far behind the quality of sugegstions I get through existing media and networks.
And quality really is the key. I don’t need more recomendations, I need better ones. A lot of Web 2.0 feels to me like duplication in a cooler package – which is really just duplication.
For a blog to reach my A-list (the sites I check out most every day), it needs to knock something out – it’s a competition for space. Same goes with podcasts. I have time for, at most, three hours of podcasts a week (on various commutes and waits). So for me to add a podcast, it would have to replace an existing (and excellent) podcast subscription.
It’s not about quantity, or volume, or cool, its about quality.
Lots of random, progressively more refined recomendations from “average” folks are well and good, but to be honest I prefer pushing against a smaller number of regular, known reviewers for my movie and music suggestions. Tracking comments is fun, but I barely have time to track blogs and besides, most good bloggers elevate excellent comment discussions anyway.
So, for now, I’m kissing Web 2.0 goodbye. Maybe in the future new social networking technologies will offer something more compelling (hasn’t the web always been social anyway? It has for me!). Till then I’m going to enjoy the extra time in each week and just go read another book.
