The web really has evolved in pretty amazing ways in the last decade. I think O’Reilly makes a great point with who really controls our user reviews, but to me, that Web 2.0 label does change the discussion. The map he gives on the first page of his article says that Web 2.0 is about how “you control your own data.” Yet that’s not what Web 2.0 is really about. I don’t control those user reviews, my pictures on Facebook or Flickr, or anything I put on BitTorrent. Web 2.0 seems more about giving up control and having that be totally fine (for the most part).

I wish O’Reilly had talked about the rise and fall of AOL in his article, because that’s a pretty apt comparison. I’m pretty sure we mentioned it in class when Bryan Alexander was videochatting in, but I could be wrong.

I was more compelled by Bryan’s points about collaboration through Wikis than his points about the blog being more than a personal diary. Blogs have taken over and have cool features like RSS feeds and whatnot, but I know a of blogs that still function as nothing more than a diary, which isn’t a bad thing. Facebook and Twitter, I feel, though, have taken over that space in a more dramatic way, something Bryan touches on a little bit, but I don’t think he goes over how impactful the “diary that people can comment on” aspect is, instead focusing on how the 140 character limitation affects the stories being told, and Facebook profiles as a medium for storytelling.

Wikis are a much better demonstration of the evolving web. I read a book by the guy who writes Dilbert called “God’s Debris” that presents an alternative to the God debate. In it, he supposes that if God truly is omniscient, the only thing he couldn’t actually know is what happens if he isn’t there. So he essentially kills himself and we are the product of him putting himself back together. As he gets closer to doing that, we get more advanced. Every step we take is another step toward reforming God. And the Internet, a collective consciousness, is a huge step in that direction. Wikis are a collective consciousness. If someone were to tell me that community-driven Wikis are the most dramatic change to how humans organize knowledge since the invention of the book, I would respect that opinion. I might even agree.

The Creative Commons link never worked for me, so I don’t have a lot to say with that.

It’s tough to nail down exactly what the evolution of the web has been about, or what people perceive it to have been about. It’s definitely not about controlling your own data, though. But that’s why I hate that Web 2.0 label. It’s way too reductive. I just don’t think you can sum the evolution of the web up in one term. Even that Web 2.0 meme map in O’Reilly’s article has contradictions in it.