[Air-l] Web 2.0 - "the machine is us?"

[Ulf-Dietrich Reips]

Alexis,
good to see that we agree on so much. In fact, I 
feel we totally agree in what was at the core of 
this discussion.

At 21:12 Uhr +0000 14.2.2007, Alexis Turner wrote:
>   To be
>honest, it seems like you are hell bent on getting me to agree to some sort of
>slippery slope scenario where I ultimately agree that the modern
>iteration of the web  is exactly the same as a library card catalog.

No, this is not in my intention. I am simply 
trying to throw in enough examples that show the 
changes in the Web we have been seeing recently 
are not a paradigm shift (that silly 1 2 
marketing scam) as we already agreed on, but in 
good continuation of earlier great developments, 
functions and ideas.

>I don't
>believe that and I don't plan on agreeing to it 
>that easily.  If I gain 1 pound,
>I'm still thin.  If I gain another.  Still thin. 
>I start to look a little jowly
>after 20, though.  The web, likewise, looks a little different after so many
>years of development.  Why get hung up on terminology...1.0 v. 2.0?  Has our
>approach matured, or hasn't it?

Sure, yes, of course! I wouldn't call you or the 
Web "fat", though. Universally binary maybe ;-)

>In what
>kind of scenario would it be possible for a 
>person to use the web without having
>to find something?

As an aside: the term "surfing" was explicitly 
used for what people do on the Web, because it 
semantically contains rather large portions of 
drifting aimlessly, being shoveled where the 
waves go, being blown away etc., and not 
searching with a clear goal.
Thanks for pointing out that most activities on 
the Web involve at least some searching, and may 
it be for the mouse arrow on the screen...

>So, in other words, your only real complaint is the actual terminology "web
>2.0?"

The terminology *and* what is associated with it: 
Brainwashing by dichotomizing the multitude of 
developments, ideas, functions, applications, 
communities that make up the Web. Degrading so 
many great ideas by comparing them to a subset 
and suggesting that the subset is fundamentally 
better. Take the Google (search engine) example 
again that supposedly is 1.0. 2.0 talk would 
suggest that it is backwardish to develop or use 
something like Google. But this is not true, of 
course.

Social software is a relatively new concept, as 
is the Blog. But there are many many others, just 
think and remember. Off the hat: listserv, 
Gopher, forms, Dejanews, The Well, irc, Amazon, 
elbot, ICQ, Javascript, Java, MUD, frames, CSS, 
open source, Yahoo!, VRML, Panoramas, plugin, 
Netscape, PGP, top level domain expansion, Skype, 
PDF, spiders, open access, wireless, paperball, 
meta search, DHTML, https, fax2mail, PHP, 
Webcam... definitely not a 1.0_2.0able 
development!

>Does that mean that you do or do not believe that certain tasks are
>approached with a different mindset or set of tools...on a large scale?

Well, here we are - as has been mentioned before, 
we are having this discussion via a plain old - 
and I would like to say: very well maintained! - 
*listserv*. Oh, hey, throw some tags at me ;-)

>If yes,
>how significant is that difference?  (In other words, how many pounds does the
>web have to gain before you feel that it no 
>longer looks exactly the same as it
>used to?)

It never looks the same. Part of the reason is 
that I have only two eyes. Eye 1.0 and eye 2.0 ;-)

>Thanks for the good discussion....
>-Alexis

Same here --u
-- 
PD Dr. Ulf-Dietrich Reips
                   
	    Past President, Society for Computers 
in Psychology (http://scip.ws)
	    Editor, International Journal of 
Internet Science (http://www.ijis.net)
*new address*
                     Universität Zürich
	    Psychologisches Institut		 
	    Binzmühlestr. 14/13
	    8050 Zürich, Switzerland

iScience portal (http://psych-iscience.unizh.ch/)