Call For Non-Techie Web 2.0 Stories
One of my readers Taewoo Danny Kim recently compared Web 2.0 to the Semantic Web and I think he hit on an important point. He wrote in an email that Web 2.0 and the Semantic Web are...
"...basically moving towards the same thing (web as platform) from two different directions: web 2.0 more from the business side and the Semantic Web more from the political (W3C) and academic (research) side."
Here on R/WW I tend to focus on business applications of 'Web as Platform' technologies, so I think twdanny is spot on. I've focused a lot on innovative software companies like Bloglines, Feedburner, Flickr, Amazon, Google, Yahoo, PubSub, etc. But pretty soon I'll start to more fully explore how non-techie businesses are being transformed by Web 2.0.
Over the past couple of months I've had email exchanges with people from various backgrounds: e.g. lawyers, investment analysts, librarians, journalists, marketers, PR people, educators. Plus of course technologists! I've also had emails from Internet executives who've told me they read my blog and like my ideas (much to my delight!).
I want to hear your stories
Web 2.0 is more than just a Silicon Valley phenomenon - it's transforming nearly every industry. There's certainly been a lot of talk about how journalism is being disrupted. I think most other industries are too and I'm planning to explore that in the coming months.
So keep an eye out for a wider range of business-related Web 2.0 stories on Read/Write Web.
If you're a non-geek reading this, I'd love to know what interests you about Web technology and how you believe it is transforming your career or life. Plus if you have any specific topics you'd like me to write about, let me know! In either case, please leave a comment here or email me at readwriteweb AT gmail DOT com.
# 1
# 2
Terrence you said "It is not a case of web 2.0 being approached from two directions..."
That *wasn't* what I wrote. What I wrote is that the 'web as platform' idea can be approached from two different directions: business side (Web 2.0) and academic/political (Semantic Web).
Other than that, I agree with your comment. My focus on this blog is the "How can we use it?" side of things. In order to do that I also, of course, explore the enabling technologies.
It is not a case of web 2.0 being approached from two directions, rather it's about answering a couple of basic questions that are two sides of the same coin: "How can we use it?" (the business question) and "How do we implement it?" (the semantics question).
The semantic web is about creating machine readable data that is structured and retains it's meaning in the absense of it's visual interpretation. It is the enabling technology of Web 2.0 and RSS in it's various flavours is the best known example we have so far.
The importance of the semantic web and standards (such as W3C) to business users is that it protects their investment by preventing vendor lock-in, it has a bigger pool of creative ideas for implementation than any single vendor can provide, and rip, remix and burn relies on it.