January 20, 2007
web 8.0
With the people old enough to remember Web 2.0 now dying off because of old age, and with Web 8.0 now beginning to kick in, I am still amazed by how much has changed since then:
1. We take for granted that we don't have to work for a living. But for our grandfathers, life wasn't so easy. Believe it or not, back in the bad old days you actually had to make something, and then find a "buyer", and "sell" it at a "profit". No longer. Thanks to the "Long Tail", paying customers now magically spring out of nowhere and give you money, even if you don't have a product or service.
2. In Web 2.0, owning slaves was still considered a bad thing, and was illegal. Imagine! It wasn't really till Web 4.0 and 5.0 came along that everybody [i.e. not just the folk living around Silicon Valley] finally wised up about living in a "Startup Economy".
3. In Web 2.0, producers had to advertise to customers. Then along came the "Intention Economy" where customers now must advertise to producers. Or else. We know where you live.
4. In Web 2.0, you actually met people and had sex with their... BODIES. Flabby, wrinkly, smelly, fleshy things, not one bit like their avatars. Yuck. Disgusting. Foul.
5. In Web 2.0, people didn't serve long prison sentences for not reading Techmeme. Barbaric!
6. In Web 2.0 they had these things called newspapers. Not only were they read by an unbelievably tiny audience [e.g. a few hundred thousand people!], they employed vast, expensive armies of people to create non-user generated content. Yes, people were actually paid MONEY to create content! Can you believe it? This is so VASTLY different to what happens today, where even the smallest, humblest, modest of "Mommy Blogs" is read by tens of millions of people on a daily basis, ever since the immortal Technorati first managed to fix their bugs.
Posted by hugh macleod at January 20, 2007 5:57 AM | TrackBackGlad I took my Soma this morning. Oh Prozac. Wait....
Posted by: Hamish at January 20, 2007 5:18 PMI'm all ready for Web X! I've had it with assigning numbers, let's assign letters... or better yet, Roman Numerals! I remember the first time I heard of "surfing the web"; frankly, this terrified me because I couldn't quite fathom a spider doing such a thing, let alone a fly.
This is positively off-topic but I'd like to thank you for "HOW TO BE CREATIVE". I've also emailed it around the office here (at Linden Lab... yes, Second Life) and you have a lot of inspiring points. I especially like the "If somebody wants to overtake me in the business card doodle wars..." bit. Very cheeky and true.
Keep it up, Hugh. You're a Saint. Or at least, a Genius. Is there a difference between the two? :)
Posted by: Torley at January 20, 2007 9:32 PMHeh! I remember when all this 'web' hooha was finally over and done with, and some fart decided to code all the bibles, korans, baghavad gita's and every other scripture into ∞Life. Did we have fun! But fortunately, Steve Jobs really did turn out to be God, and flashed the Bluebrain cranial implant of every person on the planet with utter divinity. Peace at last. And no more crashes. ;-)
Posted by: Martin Stall at January 20, 2007 10:51 PMAlso took my prozac, but rather than do it this morning i decided against it and did it this afternon..
*drones in furious frenzy*
anyway, loved that specific entry.. so much vision, so much insight.. so very funny.. and scary enough so very accurate !
Keep the good stuff coming and good luck with your ventures.. ( Stormhoek, English Cut, etc..)
Posted by: Fnank at January 20, 2007 11:02 PM;-D
Anything I can say will be held against me anyway.
Posted by: Valeria Maltoni at January 20, 2007 11:08 PMWann machma denn die n¤chste party??? lebe lang und erfolgreich!!! :)