In the past few months when I’ve been quiet, the Web 2.0 buzz has been creeping into the Singapore psyche apparently. The signs are everywhere now.
A little bird told me that the Media Development Authority (MDA) wants to take advantage of this Web 2.0 thing to kick the media industry up a notch, I personally know of several local Web 2.0 startup projects that are getting off the ground, everyone wants a blog or a podcast now, and all the marketing big wigs and the media industry are going ape over social networks (think My Space… and nothing more).
This is both healthy and a little worrying personally. “Web 2.0″ was useful to describe a way of thinking about the Internet. But, having seen the dot com burst, any buzz term that takes precedence over substance has always worried me somewhat.
Social networks, AJAX, network effects, folksonomies, blogs, wikis… yes these are new adoptions that are gaining ground, but technology is so much more than the sum of these parts.
Technology is about people.
Choon Keat sent me this article about how content management systems have been on the wrong track (Thanks Choon Keat!), and it kinda mirrored exactly what I’ve been thinking. Technology is fundamentally about helping people. It’s not about the plumbing (AJAX). And it’s certainly not about the money (although it’s an essential bi-product in almost all cases).
It’s about solving problems. Solving people’s problems. Real people, mind you. It’s about fulfilling a need. Most of all, it’s about helping people… be it to find long lost friends, or to share photos, or to bookmark sites, or to manage process document that are in a mess.
I hope people don’t lose sight of this in the gold rush.
No prob. “CMS” has become a bad word.
Left by choonkeat on October 7th, 2006
oh yeah! that is how the web should progress.
having more user friendly interfaces, cheerful illustrations and most importantly connects people and stop the cliche thinking that the Internet is a dead thing.
Left by zaoyi on January 14th, 2007
so right, its not only technology that is about the people too. business is also about the people. money again is a side effect, solving real problems of humans should take priority. enough of my philosophy.. =)
Left by Bjorn on February 2nd, 2007