I missed the start of the blogger’s lunch, but managed to catch the panel answering the whole Web 2.0 question.
The panel: Phil Sim, Michael Platt, Darren Neimke, Jane O’Connell and Des Walsh were guided by Frank Arrigo.
Highlights included hearing them each give their view of what the hell Web 2.0 is. My favourite was Phil who summarised it along the lines of ‘it is a period in time when the technology, infrastructure, privacy concerns, thirst for interactivity and advertising have all come together’. As he went on to explain, some of the technology (eg AJAX) has been around for a while, but just needed the other factors to be there too. The whole social networking ‘thing’ would never have taken off if we still held the same concerns for privacy that we did 10 years ago.
I think he is right. Whilst we can point to styles of web site, and even the way we interact, there is definitely a mindset element that has made it take off.
These same success factors will also likely be problematic in the future, as IP, defamation and other legal implications catch up in the next 5 years.
The discussion was thought provoking, and perhaps even cautionary.
