The Redundancy of Web 2.0
I came a little bit late to the Web2.0 party. To be honest, I had seen the characteristics of web 2.0 in a lot of designs and had liked the way they were colourful as well as clean and used white space well.It has now come to the point where it is being parodied because it is in every recent website and more websites are updating with these characteristics. Even this very website has some of the design traits of 2.0. Click here to search “Web 2.0 website generator“, click on one of the pretty links and you will see what I am talking about in regards to design traits.
However, Web 2.0 is not only a design trend, but also a trend of the internet. Blogs, podcasting, myspace, youtube etc - all that shit helps make up 2.0. Think of it as allowing users to have the most “control” (aka - controlled sense of control) over these websites and share and collaborate with a community. Don’t be surprised if you get confused as to what I am talking about - it seems pointless doesn’t it? I mean, what was the internet used for before then?
So we can estimate that Web 2.0 has been carrying on for about 2+ years. Or at least around the time myspace started, let’s just say. Since then, there has been a slew of websites all vying for your customer participation to share and collaborate with one another. However, it has come to the point where there are websites coming out that use the web 2.0 principle but are completely pointless.
Gleamd is a perfect example of this. My boss and I were both invited to Gleamd and were interested in the site, as we weren’t exactly sure what it was meant to be. After a while of looking for “more” to what the site actually had, we realised that it was a people tracker - not exactly like myspace or facebook but you include people on this site. I guess it’s almost like a wikipedia - but of people. Right.
Another thing that I simply do not get about web 2.0 start ups is that every single one of these websites is in a BETA version. Instead of 1.0 or what ever - it’s in BETA. It’s almost as if BETA is a name trend in Web 2.0. I am not exactly understanding what is the attraction towards the word BETA. To me, it screams “WE MIGHT CRASH ANY MOMENT”.
Pownce is another example of web 2.0 scrapping the bottom of the tragic barrel. I joined Pownce after scoring an invite to see what the fuss was about. Pownce is apparently the new name for Ccing in your emails. You can also send messages, events, files and links to people in your contact list in emails as well. Everyone shat themselves because Kevin Rose (dude behind digg) helped create this useless piece of crap. If Kevin Rose does it, it must have a point to it! EL. OH. EL.
The most depressing web 2.0 site of them all is Touch Graph. Just so you can map out the tragedy, redundancy and uselessness that is becoming web 2.0.
Categorized as web design