Web 2.0 and gardening
February 5th, 2007
The concept of a second generation Internet being very different from the first has been around for a while. We have become accustomed to this new Web that links people and that isn’t just focused on helping people find information – but do we really know what Web 2.0 is?
… so what is Web 2.0? Can anyone please tell me, because frankly it never seemed to be a clearly defined term either! Everyone I ask defines it differently. In fact, I remember when the term first came out and there were all these blog surveys asking “what does Web 2.0 mean to you?” etc. That’s because nobody really knew. It’s a term that has taken on meaning over time, but there was a lot of resistance to it, and confusion about it, at first.
According to the Wikipedia, Web 2.0 is defined as: “Web 2.0, a phrase coined by O’Reilly Media in 2004, refers to a supposed second generation of Internet-based services—such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies—that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users.”
Source: Minding the Planet blog, Web 3.0 versus Web 2.0, 13 November 2006
Tim O’Reilly provides some examples of the differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 here …
| Web 1.0 | Web 2.0 | |
|---|---|---|
| DoubleClick | –> | Google AdSense |
| Ofoto | –> | Flickr |
| Akamai | –> | BitTorrent |
| mp3.com | –> | Napster |
| Britannica Online | –> | Wikipedia |
| personal websites | –> | blogging |
| evite | –> | upcoming.org and EVDB |
| domain name speculation | –> | search engine optimization |
| page views | –> | cost per click |
| screen scraping | –> | web services |
| publishing | –> | participation |
| content management systems | –> | wikis |
| directories (taxonomy) | –> | tagging (“folksonomy”) |
| stickiness | –> | syndication |
Now look at this comparison by Stuart Robinson from his Gardening Tips ‘n’ Ideas blog …
| Gardening 1.0 | Gardening 2.0 | |
|---|---|---|
| Share your garden with your neighbour | –> | Share your garden with the world |
| Plant Boosters | –> | Soil Improvers |
| El Nino | –> | Global Warming |
| Grow cuttings for neighbours and friends | –> | Plant by numbers |
| Local Nurseries | –> | Home Depot |
| Seed catalogues | –> | Amazon.com |
| Growing plants in the ground | –> | Growing plants upside down |
| Mow the lawn on Saturday morning | –> | Jim’s Mowing |
I love the way Stuart has related what seems to many like computing speak into an everyday activity that so many people engage in. How many of us would have automatically thought of the link between gardening and Web 2.0? The Internet is having an impact in so many activities we participate in daily. When we want to know something we head straight for the computer. When we want to find someone to talk to about something we now also tend to head for the computer.
Now, there is talk of Web 3.0!
…we might define Web 3.0 as “Web 3.0, a phrase coined by John Markoff of the New York Times in 2006, refers to a supposed third generation of Internet-based services — such as those using semantic web, microformats, natural language search, data-mining, machine learning, recommendation agents, and artificial intelligence technologies — that emphasize machine-facilitated understanding of information in order to provide a more productive and intuitive user experience.”
Source: Minding the Planet blog, Web 3.0 versus Web 2.0, 13 November 2006
By the way if you want to read the New York Times article referred to here you have to pay!
Roll on Gardening 3.0! We’re poised and ready to see what Web 3.0 have to offer the home gardener.