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filling the void

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Web 2.0

I was watching click on BBC just now, and they were highlighting some new companies, and talking about venture capital, who it normally goes to, and why. They were talking about "clean tech", which apparently is an umbrella concept for all environmentally friendly technology, and how a third of all the VC money ends up in the hands of peope working with "clean tech".

When they weren't talking about clean tech, they were talking about the often espoused buzzword Web 2.0. They looked at services like twitter, some webbased movie editor, and some other completely useless Web 2.0 applications. As I was watching the report unfold, it dawned on me that very few of the Web 2.0 applications I have seen in recent memory has contributed with any added value, other than being a complete waste of time. Web 2.0 is supposed to be all about user contribution. Social networking sites and wiki-based applications litter the internet. Hell, I'm using a Web 2.0 application right now. To be fair, the only Web 2.0 applications that come to mind as useful are the various blogging platforms, wikipedia (to some extent), and the google maps system. I'd be hard pressed to find any other Web 2.0 applications I consider worthwhile.

Now, not finding a certain technology useful isn't really a problem. There is a lot of technology out there to fill your every need, but the scary thing is that the entire world has put its trust in Web 2.0, and a lot of money has been invested into it, which leads me to believe that we are heading for a similar crash like the one we had in the end of the 90ies, when the so-called "dot com bubble" burst. I'm not too well versed in the stock market, but I can't possibly imagine a lot of these investments panning out. If the Web 2.0 investors do well, so much better for them, but in all honesty, I doubt that they will. If they do, the users of the internet are worse off because the applications these venture capitalists put money into are taking up out time without rewarding us with anything worth while. All things considered, Web 2.0 is largely a loose-loose situation for civilization (if I'm allowed to use such a grand and all-encompassing term), and I think that people should think twice with redards to both what they invest their money in, and how they spend their valuable time.

On a different note, sitting at a different computer, I have noticed that sometimes this site provided popups. This was never my intention, and I will try to get to the bottom of this and banish those accursed things from this site forever.
(Yet again the spell checker fails me...)

EDITED TO ADD: Ok, so I guess youtube also makes the list of acceptable Web 2.0 applications, but I am already royally pissed at the facebook apps system, and I've been a member for less than a month.

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