Are you afraid of Web 2.0?

What will you do with the "new" web? How will it affect your business? Can you even compete anymore?

There have been paradigm shifts before Web 2.0. The web itself was a huge one, following close on the heels of when computers became as common as telephones.

If you didn't panic over those paradigm shifts, you've no reason to panic over Web 2.0!

If you DID panic, remember that you survived anyway! That should give you some hope that you'll find a way to survive and profit from Web 2.0.

So, just what is Web 2.0? The name was coined for a conference by O'Reilly, and it struck a chord. What it means can be just a little hazy until you stop and consider what Web 1.0 is and how Web 2.0 is different.

The first web presented content as "places" -- a web "site." It was pretty exciting to be able to get content from all over the world, even though most of the content was simple and boring. Web sites were like online brochures with pages, and, let's face it, lots of self-serving content that wasn't of much use to anyone. That, plus the content was mostly generated by the owners of those sites; content created by a small number of people for a large number of readers.

Web 2.0 is the Web in which the content is generated by a large number of people, supplied to the net in "microcontent" units that can be distributed over many domains. Is the content any better? Well, no! particularly if the content is taken as a whole. What is better is that there is SO MUCH content that the best and brightest of it is truly amazing! An example is Flickr, Yahoo's photo sharing application. There are typically 4-5,000 images PER MINUTE uploaded to the site by it's subscribers, nearly all of them are mediocre at best, but most of those images hold special value to the subscriber, family, and friends whether the image has any artistic merit or not. But the best of those images are incredible quality!

Site owners are no longer the primary content providers for Web 2.0 sites; in large part it's the users who now provide the content. Web 2.0 is dynamic, user-driven, and uses new technologies. Key among them are the Web 2.0 APIs (application programming interfaces). The interfaces of Web 2.0 are becoming the drivers of design innovation, and web designers are having to learn the new technologies just to keep up.

Traditional web sites still exist and will continue to exist for the forseeable future, of course, but our challenge is to use the new technology to make the web better and more powerful for everyone.

What does all this mean for users and usability?

Usability concepts don't change all that much! Principles of site and software usability are still developing, of course, and the shifting paradigm of the symantec web won't change all that. Content is still king; usable and friendly access to it is still critically important.

The challenge is to supply information in such a way that users can find and use the information that is desired and/or needed.

Web 2.0 has to provide usable interfaces for the information "microcontent" and for the APIs that drive the process.

Remember, even though the source of the content has switched from site owners to users of the Internet, YOU are also a user! How will you provide content that has a powerful, positive effect on your audience and your business?