NEWS
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OPINION
Web 2.0: don t believe the hype
Is Web 2.0 an over-hyped concept, or an innovation that will revolutionise how designers use the internet? Jason Arber has the answer&
The name Web 2.0 may suggest at increasing the server s efficiency by be bandied about, but Web 2.0 is no more the
something fantastic and different, but developing applications with less code. next stage of the web than spinning globes or
I can think of a couple of other concepts that Many of these features have been mooted changing the colour of hyperlinks were.
have had a much bigger impact on the web. for years, so if anything this movement is But don t dismiss Web 2.0. After all, it sent
Take client-side scripting, such as a ripple of excitement through the web
JavaScript (or ECMAScript, to be pedantic). community at a time when the internet was
 Some of the technology and
For all its cross-browser nightmares and becoming accepted as almost ordinary. Now
imagination used is extraordinary,
hacks, JavaScript expanded the capabilities it s a place teeming with ideas again. RSS
of the internet. But no-one suggested calling feeds, podcasts, Wikis, the net is crawling
but stills falls short of the seismic
the web Version 2.0 when Netscape fi rst with creative notions bootstrapping off each
rolled the capability into its browser. other and into the wider world. That s why
shift that a Web 2.0 label implies
When Macromedia (now Adobe) Flash people want Web 2.0 websites, because they
took the web by storm, no-one said,  Hey, more evolutionary than revolutionary. Let s want a slice of the innovation, they want to
we re through with this Version 1.0 web now examine some of the sites that are considered bask in the warm glow of technological
we have animated vectors! So is this latest as Web 2.0 to draw some conclusions. Take a advancement. It s good for web developers,
wave of development really worthy of the gander at Google Maps, Flickr, del.icio.us, it s good for web designers, and it s good for
name Web 2.0? I don t think so. and digg. Aside from being robustly built the web in general.
using the latest thinking in XHTML and Web 2.0 is like an in-joke that only the few
Is this the future? CSS, the sites are cleanly designed with the with an understanding of the technology get.
Proponents gush about web-based apps, emphasis on function rather than form. It s a useful tool for the internet crusaders
better organised content with improved Perhaps most important is that they all stomping the boredom and bad design out of
categorisation (read Tags) and the use of new offer open APIs (application programming the internet, and for lazy editors who can t be
technologies such as Ajax and Ruby on Rails interfaces), which is just a way of saying that bothered to sort the technological wheat from
in various combinations. Ajax is an acronym the website data is easy to share. This has FORUMS the over-hyped chaff. The only danger comes
for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, and resulted in the rise of mash-ups, or sites that Visit http://forum. when those who should be laughing behind
describes technologies working together to combine information from different sources. computerarts.co.uk their hands start believing the hype, too.
shift some of the processing of web Some of the technology and imagination to share your views on
applications and forms from web servers to used is extraordinary, but still falls short of this topic and more Jason Arber is a designer and co-founder
the user s computer. Ruby on Rails, on the the seismic shift that a Web 2.0 label implies. with other CA readers of www.pixelsurgeon.com. Email him at
other hand, is a server-side framework aimed Put simply, it s hype, it s a buzzword that can [e-mail].
22 April 2006
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ART121.news_op Sec1:22 28/2/06 5:19:51 pm
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