The idea buffet at RandyKolb.com » 2008» February
Don’t know how many industry/trade magazines I’ve subscribed to over the years. There are some I definitely pick up and read or scan regularly and then there are the others that I wish did not have my contact info. There’s yet another category that can evoke varying emotions among us—those no longer in publication.
Among that last group there are a small subset that I miss; those which were stellar in their markets (e.g., “Business 2.0”, which bit the dust in October just last year), had consistently great article/authors, excelled at segment coverage, or maybe I just liked the way they made me think. The Industry Standard was one such mag; it did a phenomenal job of covering online business. Liked it so much I kept the final issue as a memento when it ceased publication some years back.
I was really pleased to get an email this week that the pub was back online as a beta. Here’s the mag’s elevator pitch:
“The Industry Standard features news and analysis that covers emerging technologies and companies, venture funding, acquisitions, site launches, and other developments in the internet space. Additionally, The Standard aggregates community knowledge in a quantified fashion, thereby ranking both the knowledge of the individual community members themselves, as well as the value of the information the community provides as a whole. This system is built as a prediction market, intersected with a reputation-based social network.”
So it looks like the new, web 2.0 incarnation will build more on the strength of its readership. It’s not the first community based prediction engine out there, but, if the caliber of readership is like it used to be, it has potential to be one of the best. This could be good.
It’s no surprise that there’s still confusion about Web 2.0, as well as the distinctions between Web 1.0, Web 2.0, and Web 3.0. It’s a bit surprising, however, when firms in the industry don’t get it right 
(note the email that came in this week from the Web Buyer’s Guide and IBM—I really think they meant it to say “3.0″, not “2.0″). Since there’s still confusion out there, I thought I’d toss out a high level cheat sheet to help slice and dice your way through those distinctions.
Granted, these definitions are subjective. Also, it wasn’t easy to constrain each to 25 words or less, but I believe they’re fairly accurate. If you’ve got something better please let me know.
(Apparently) universal truths
An energetic consultant runs into your office and enthusiastically exclaims “This (web version) will enable you to develop rich user experiences, powerfully engage your customers, and transform your business as never before!”; to which specific web version would she/he be referring? Of course the answer is “all the above”. With the advent of each ‘version’, if you will, industry pundits, analysts, and especially vested software vendors have lauded the concept as finally enabling the use of the net as a platform. This was true back in the 90s and the choir hasn’t changed the tune yet. If there’s a Web 4.0+ to come, you can bank on the fact that the same will apply then as well. However, this does not mean the consultant will be wrong…some incredible things (have and) will be done.
Another item that applies to each version: much can be said about the limits, extensions, and applicability of different technologies and standards to each. Truthfully, much of the inner workings of each use identical technologies. There are a few distinctions but not as many as one might think. This is why I’d contend the differences are more in the functional attributes rather than the underlying technologies. Sure, there are newer technologies, as well as maturation of older, highly reliable tools, but I’d still side with functional elegance as distinctive characteristics.
Fact vs. fiction
Web 1.0 works fine. Much has, and will continue to be, accomplished with these technologies. They will continue to evolve while others will mature. You don’t necessarily need a Web 2.0 site. If all you’re doing is successfully selling T shirts and toe nail clippers online, keep at it. It’s not broken. Can you benefit from 2.0? Quite possibly. But it’s equally possible that if you integrate 2.0 features you could be wasting your time with only a veneer of pay back. Like any feature, there should be solid potential for ROI before you begin writing development bits to disk.
How about 3.0? Here the ink is still too wet on the concepts to cash in. However, my take is there really is tremendous potential for integration with a *mature* semantic web, kind of like RSS on steroids. How long that takes to become a reality, to gain industry and enterprise wide traction, remains today’s exercise in speculation.
This all kind of suggests a question. Were dial-up bulletin boards the advent of Web 2.0 back in the late 80s and we just didn’t realize it? Of course I’m joking, but it just demonstrates that many of the concepts have been around for a while.