That sentence, more or less, ends David Weinberger’s 2002 book Small Pieces Loosely Joined. I read this book a few years ago, and I re-read it recently to see what I might get out of it in the context of Web 2.0. A lot of Small Pieces is about explaining the paradigm-shifting changes caused by the web’s late-nineties explosion; i.e. our new ways of life enabled by the net. Weinberger, interestingly, explains the changes as not really changes after all – the web reveals the selves we want to occupy in a place where the cultural and legal precedents are not yet established.
In a sense, Small Pieces frames Web 2.0 perfectly. The hope we shared during Web 1.0 is still alive; the connected masses want to speak, communicate, and establish their place. Blogging, LiveJournaling, being on MySpace and Facebook, talking with Skype and Gtalk – the promise of the web is very much still alive, and I’d argue our dreams have been wildly exceeded. The Web is our place; and Web 2.0 is about us.
This brings me to a number of posts I’ve come across or been sent recently. Read/Write Web covers it as the 53,651 meme, and has links to all the relevant posts. It is worth a read. To sum, 53,651 are the number of subscribers to Techcrunch.com’s RSS feed. Techcrunch is a fun website that dishes scoops on new Web 2.0 software; to be featured on Techcrunch is to have the captive audience of the web’s tastemakers for a brief moment – something that can jump-start a new web venture. The 53,651 bloggers sum up two points: the traffic spike (and users) you get from this coverage aren’t a “real” audience, and to design for this audience is not to design for the web in general.
During Web 1.0, I worked for a large dot com; I spent the bust working in open source, and now I find myself running a “Web 2.0″ company. It’s a fairly unique perspective. As such, web 2.0 is a unique phenomenon – certainly, a lot of the old faces are back, but there are a lot of new faces – the late-teens/early 20′s set who sat out Web 1.0 from the sidelines. Web 2.0 is a unique hybrid of the large and small; a Google may be mentioned in the same paragraph as a one- or two-person firm from middle America. Designers are torn between Tim O’Reilly’s vision and the need to create catchy, career-defining applications. At the same time, the media holds traffic darlings up as exemplars of the new web; it’s no wonder that the soul searching has begun again in earnest.
For so many of us, Web 2.0 feels so fundamentally right for the reasons Weinberger lays out in Small Pieces. We’ve had a chance to wash away the sins of the past, and now we can celebrate those who design software that answers our needs – a lot of those needs being artifactual needs of living online. We feel fundamentally at ease supporting (financially and otherwise) projects that are truly good ideas; we’ve even got generationally appropriate geek-heroes like Mark Zuckerberg and Joshua Schachter. To the geeks and skeptics, Web 2.0 just does feel right.
The bloggers taking on the 53,651 meme have noticed something, though. The Web 2.0 that is being represented in the blogosphere is becoming a self-referential cycle of non-innovation. Deconstruct a few ideas of Web 2.0 – “social”, “tagging”, “sharing”, “remix” – take them and apply them to a few areas – search, media, bookmarks – and you’ve got the next Web 2.0 application. How many photo and media sharing sites are there? How many vertical search engines are there? How many social networking sites are there? Have we run out of ideas?
No, we haven’t run out of ideas, but the ecosystem that supports Web 2.0 has proven to be more of a sycophant than an actual marketplace of ideas. And since this ecosystem seems to only accept a few notions of Web 2.0, and is more than willing to parrot the thought leaders, we’re seeing a genuine echo-chamber effect. At the same time, the re-introduction of venture capital changes the democratic nature of the blogosphere; the story is no longer a nifty web application doing something genuinely different or useful, but of yet another (social networking/media hosting/rss-enabling) site securing funding. The air of innovation is being sucked out of the room’s conversation.
I think this rightfully scares a lot of us. We bought back into the hype because Web 2.0 was genuinely different. It smelled of grass roots. It smelled egalitarian. And what has that brought us? Valleywag.
It is time to refocus, because there’s a lot to be learned from the Web 2.0 success stories. The sites that are winning in the Web 2.0 market are qualitatively different from their Web 1.0 precursors. The founders of the sites thought smaller, worked to solve real problems, and created usable software that did a few things, and did them well. In tackling a problem area, a few of these sites found breakout success, but many are happy operating within a niche. A big part of Web 2.0 is understanding that you start small – solving one group’s problem and moving on. That we’re not designing macro is a built-in – this is not a point to lament.
That we can be excited about the web again feels good. The web is exciting. The web’s resurgence makes us feel as if the last 10 years of our lives weren’t wasted on a fool’s errand. We bought in to the web, and now we’re being repaid. The web is fundamentally ours, and Weinberger says. However, let us not lose focus; the exemplars of Web 2.0 are great ideas that would have been funded in 2006, 1996 or any time in between. Original, problem-solving thinking is always needed; copycats less so. As someone involved in an “original” venture, I’m gambling on this. For us, the road is long, it requires focus and perseverance. If our ideas are good, the users will come. Our ideas have entered the marketplace of ideas – and it feel so much better to be behind something original than something cloned.
In a sense, Web 2.0 is built on original thought. As long as the innovators keep solving useful problems in usable ways, this movement will go forward. The Web is ours; web 2.0 is about our users’ needs. As long as we can keep that in focus, we’ve got a long and interesting road ahead.
Tags: Del.icio.us, facebook, Web 2.0
Do you really think copy-cat activity is something to worry about? I look at that as simply the confirmation that something of value has been created and its value is now being recognized by a broader spectrum of people. The work of a great literary figure spawns a generation of imitators. A genuinely new sound on the radio (say, Alanis Morrisette 8 years ago) spawns a rabble of mimics who at least start out by imitating the cool new sound. In business and technology it’s the same way, I think.
Movements are started by innovators, then the wave they launched begins to mount, fed in part by genuine followers who add something value, but also accompanied by slew of “me too!” people seeking a quick financial gain. The latter distort and confuse the true message and import of the new innovation.
The only real danger in my view would be if one of these latter has the money and influence to almost “take over” the new technology and claim it as their own domain (as Microsoft was accused of doing). But we don’t see such a thing in Web 2.0 yet, do we?
No – I don’t worry about copying. In technology, we don’t always invent, we innovate. I’m worried that we are losing focus of the innovation of Web 2.0, instead spending our time focusing on the glamour and glitz of venture capital. The “me too” stuff gets old – but if they’re getting funded, they are making news.
I love reading techcrunch and seeing new, interesting ideas coming forward. These companies may be one or two person shops, but if the idea is catchy, let’s let them play in the marketplace of ideas. The “revolution” of Web 2.0 is coming from interesting thinking. I don’t want to see that go away.
Venture capital is good in that it provides a means for people who have good ideas, but who cannot afford the risk of starting their own venture (because they have kids, for example), to participate in the innovation.
But, having investigated the process for gaining venture capital a bit myself, and having watched the 1990s wave and the subsequent bust, I do agree that the current model of venture capital has problems and doesn’t really “understand” today’s innovative mechanism. VC is not nimble, and it’s not particularly smart (the theory still seems to be, spread enough money around in different directions, and hope one or two of the companies turn into stars; but if things turn bad because so many idiotic ideas were funded, let’s fund NOTHING for the next 4 years)…
What’s missing, I think, is genuine micro-funding, i.e., venture capital for the 1-2 person shops you mention. Google ads don’t do it, I’m afraid. Everything else is becoming more and more microscopic in size and targeting of application. Wouldn’t it be nice if venture capital could evolve in that direction as well?
Fred: Well stated and heart-felt thoughts. I completely agree with you about the echo-chamber effect. It’s as if one day recently we all woke up and realized, hey, all this is starting to feel the same! I think innovation will come in areas where web 2.0 thinking can be applied to industries and people outside of the crowd that are already tuned into techcrunch. Like PR, Healthcare, Politics, Travel/Leisure, etc.
Kevin: micro-funding is a cool concept. Have you heard of prosper.com or fundable.org? Two interesting business models around financing that lend themselves to this idea; if you haven’t already, you should check them out.