The Media Supermarket

- One: Hi how are you?
- Two: great how are you?
- One: did you hear about the new web software?
- Two: which one?
- One: it’s called Web 2.0 …
- Two: of course I heard about it
- One: where do you get it from? How do you download it?
- Two: (laughing) well actually it’s not a computer software, it’s a social software.
- One: what do you mean by social software?
- Two: it means that it depends on you to learn, it’s not about installing some code on your machine.
- One: I’m confused!
- Two: Web 2.0 is a set of social, economic, and technology trends, and it’s about the new ways we are using the Internet.*
- One: ok…
- Two: as users, it’s almost the same for us; we read, write, and upload and download files on the Internet.
- One: so what is really new?
- Two: The new social and commercial tools available for us; blogs, comments, photo sharing, video sharing, recommendations, social networking etc.
- One: oh, ok. I heard about these and I actually participate in some of them.
- Two: Web 2.0 is about user participation, openness, and network effects.
- One: can you please explain more?
- Two: in web 1.0 we used to read and write emails and passively read the news or browse for whatever information we wanted. Now…. We write blogs, people read them for information. We are publishers and journalists. Regular people can do advertising and public relations through their blogs and impact the public opinion regarding any topic. Companies can no longer rely on the mainstream media for all their communications. You and I shape the perception about these companies.
Here is a video that explains this in a cool way. Here is another video where the pros talk about Web2.0.
It’s just like the development in word processors for example. In the beginning, you had to be really good in computers to produce a good document with good design. Now, because the technology is advanced, you need to be a good writer and have good taste to produce good content.
The same applies to the web. We have reached a stage where publishing tools are easy to use, and cost almost nothing. The good stuff comes from good thinking, writing, marketing, design, and all the human qualities. It’s not only for the geeks.

* Definitions inspired by O’Reilly’s Web2.0 Report