Opinion: Web 2.0 - an inedible Pie!

Tony Austin
Tuesday, 02 September 2008 09:43

Opinion and Analysis

The pie-in-the-sky hype surrounding "Web 2.0" seems to have enticed some organizations to the honey pot with less than impressive results. Buzzwords abound: is Web 2.0 the same as Web Services or SOA, and does Web 2.0 have to be implemented using AJAX techniques? Where are we now with all this, and where's it all leading?

A few months ago, Telstra refreshed the design of its now we are talking site to use newer Microsoft features, and (for me at least) it behaved extremely erratically at first. Pages sometimes loaded quickly, at other times not at all or only partially. The site's working fine now, and looks quite good.

I visit lots and lots of different sites every day, but will now mention just two of them: the SD Times site seems to have undergone a revamp recently, and at the moment I'm also finding it to be a little erratic (I've measured some page load times up to 30 seconds or more). I've asked them what might be causing these problems, but yet have received no response.

The CNET site also has been revamped recently, and while it looks good and pages load quickly, I've found that there's something in the new site design that prevents a handy mouse function I use a lot (right click some text in order to do a Google or Wikipedia lookup on it) now always gives a JavaScript error whereas it didn't in their old site design.

I realize that such examples of decreased usability or page load behavior are not necessarily caused by moving across to some Web 2.0 technology such as AJAX, I have a suspicion this might have a lot to do with it.

Confusion reigns. There's still a fair bit of misunderstanding about the various terms being bandied about, what the various technologies are and how they can or should be implemented in a practical situation.

I don't intend to dwell on the details here. You can do a bit of background reading if you like, using some useful resource links that I've assembled about Web Services and SOA here (backup here) or, among many other places, in Wikipedia.

For two rather whimsical opinion pieces of mine written last year, take a gander at Web 2.0 -- on a wing and a prayer! and Web 3.0 is Underway -- but "Web Pi" is unreachable where I introduce my "Pi in the sky" view about these hyped-up trends.

As you know full well, the exact value of Pi is indeterminate, which in my 39th year in the IT industry I'm confident applies to Web 2.0 also!

PLEASE READ ON...