The meat safe and the study desk

I concede. I agree. I surrender. And, I admit that I have been changing the theme of this blog as often as, my brother changes his clothes. But the problem, you see, is that the themes offered by WordPress are limited and good. There was some indication that some more free themes were being added, but I cant seem to decide on just one of them yet!

Also, we have noticed that not all themes behave the same way. Each one has its pros and cons. For example, some how number of posts in braces, beside the categories, while some others dont. A few others display the external links description, right beside it, wheras others show it as mouse over text. Nagging problems you see…

Well, for now atleast I decided to go back to the classic theme. Anyway, its not like a whole horde of people visit my blog everyday.

A pleasant thought right at the end of the day, I have now completed two years at Tenmiles Corporation.

Having a great time, with great people, in a pretty damn good company. Yea!

Tenmiles Corporation – Miles ahead and more to go!(Sorry guys, couldnt resist the sad joke )

When I first saw this term, in some article on the internet, I was wondering how the whole World Wide Web could have a version number? Wait, the web was not a software application which had version numbers. I ddn’t know I was using the first version(1.0?) of the Web all along. What was new in this new version? These were some of the questions that I was searching for an answer.

Just to go back a little, I dont think there was one or any defining moment when this term was coined. There were new technologies coming up on the internet, new companies and services on the Web which were doing the usual things differently, and so on. Going by a sense of example, with existing services, let’s try and understand what Web 2.0 is and how it’s different. Things like, email(all the old school types), photo sharing(Ofoto), personal websites, domain name speculation, page views, content management systems(CMS) and many more suddenly had newer and more exciting equivalents like, going by the same order, GMail, Flickr(for photo sharing), Blogging, Search engine Optimisation, Cost Per Click, Wikis, etc. These new services had a few things in common, at least from the user’s perspective. They all seemed to be fast and quick, in terms of loading of the webpages, they had a slick and easy design to it, and rather more importantly, they seemed a bit more open in the Web and a heck of a lot simpler to use than all its ancestors.

The Wikipedia definition of Web 2.0 states:

The term “Web 2.0″ refers to what some people see as a second phase of development of the World Wide Web, including its architecture and its applications. As used by its proponents, the phrase refers to one or more of the following:

• the transition of websites from isolated information silos to sources of content and functionality, thus becoming a computing platform serving web applications to end users
• a social phenomenon referring to an approach to creating and distributing Web content itself, characterized by open communication, decentralization of authority, freedom to share and re-use, and “the market as a conversation”
• a more organized and categorized content, with a far more developed deeplinking web architecture
• a shift in economic value of the web, possibly surpassing that of the dot com boom of the late 1990s
• a marketing term to differentiate new web businesses from those of the dot com boom, which due to the bust now seem discredited

Pretty clear, isn’t it? Thus, the new version of the web had a different architecture, some re-invented technologies, the ease to run relatively quick web applications in traditional browsers. Most importantly, from teh social angle, it had a new sense of openness, Decentralisation of authority. In a good way, I mean. With Flickr I could see the wonderful pictures of millions of others, with del.icio.us I could share and view web content, email is fast becoming synonymous with GMail(if you havent switched yet, what on earth are you waiting for??) and my latest fascination, Digg is an amazing, yet simple way to remain updated with all the latest news on the Globe.

With all this happening and catching on pretty quckly, the challenge for companies and future products is to match the ease and purpose of the existing products. What it also does is that it opens up avenues for new business ideas. Tagging, which is an important and cool feature of many of the Web 2.0 applications, has assumed great importance.

I started writing this piece, with the idea of listing some Web 2.0 applications and their purpose. But now, it seems like introducing and understanding Web 2.0 has been long enough. Will look at some Web 2.0 applications and some personal favorites sometime in the future.

For more information on Web 2.0, check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0
http://www.oreillynet.com/lpt/a/6228

Its an interesting excersise to imagine what todays superpowers would be like tomorrow. Google, truly a superpower in the IT industry, has experienced a quick ride to the top (considering that they started only in 1997). But recently, with its problems over Google China, fall in the stock prices and a general feeling that they might not be entirely sure what they are doing(I feel so), its worth guessing what Google 2025 will be like. Will we have a GBrowser or Google OS (dont know the validity of Goobuntu yet) or will Google fall (The once-mighty search engine falls prey to privacy intrusion, optimizers and Microsoft.)

More on this here.