Web 2.0 - Evolution or Revolution?
In the year 1931, Time Magazine named Mahatma Gandhi the ‘Person of the Year’. It was Martin Luther King in 1964 and George W Bush voted twice in 2000 and 2005. However in the year 2006, it wasn’t great men or some celebrity who won it. It was none other than 'You' who became the esteemed person of the year. Yes, You. You, who is reading this blog right now and have become an essential part of the system whether you are sharing, uploading videos, social networking or maybe just surfing. This is called 'The You Era' where the credit goes to the people who have been shaping the web all along.
For the people who are still wondering what Web 2.0 might be, an easier way to its understanding would be to compare it to the History of Publishing. And history goes back to 1440 when Johannes Gutenberg was known to invent the printing press. There are 4 levels to this comparison and Level 0 was Pre-Gutenberg where all the information was hand copied and it was formed and published by the people in the higher societies. Level 1 is Post-Gutenberg where the intellectual crowd still kept producing information and this was in turn published by another group of people who were the printers. This information was made public and was accessible by the general population. Moving to Level 2 which is Web1.0 world, the printers suddenly began to produce and publish comments or commentary based on the information the intellectuals published. Level 3 is the Web 2.0 world where anyone could go ahead and publish and you don’t have to be a printer or intellectual elite to do so. You can gather or post information on Wikipedia, MySpace and sites like Flickr and the best part is, it is totally free and the only thing you end up spending is your personal time. Beautiful.
The History above shows us how Web 2.0 has slowly evolved from the 14th century to the current with the change in technology and ideas. Not much but sufficient proof to confirm Web 2.0 is an Evolution and not a Revolution.
Works Cited
Hinchcliffe, D. (2006, December 20). Retrieved September 17, 2007, from Social Computing Magazine: http://www.time.com/time/searchresults?D=person+of+the+year&sid=11532E50CC44&Ntk=WithBodyDate&to_year=2006&to_day=31&Nty=1&from_month=01&Ntt=person+of+the+year&to_month=12&from_year=1923&from_day=01&Ntx=mode+matchallany&N=46
O'Reilly, T. (2006, July 17). O'REILLY RADAR. Retrieved September 19, 2007, from O'REILLY : http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/07/levels_of_the_game.html
TIME. (n.d.). Person of the Year. Retrieved SEPTEMBER 19, 2007, from TIME MAGAZINE: http://www.time.com/time/searchresults?D=person+of+the+year&sid=11532E50CC44&Ntk=WithBodyDate&to_year=2006&to_day=31&Nty=1&from_month=01&Ntt=person+of+the+year&to_month=12&from_year=1923&from_day=01&Ntx=mode+matchallany&N=46