tutesuite

In the late 1990’s, I was struggling with building my first online portal. Although I had a specific concept in mind, the problem was in finding good, usable content for my target market. Little did anyone realize then that such information sharing would form, for all intents and purposes, the basis of what we now fondly refer to as “social media.”

Whatever buzzwordiness surrounds the concept of “Web 2.0,” interactive web technologies and social networking, the fact remains that we’ve come a long way from simply uploading content to static web pages to sharing anyone else’s content by playing tag, mashing API’s, and engaging each other in all sorts of inter-activity. Alright, so it’s not quite the random child’s game, we (supposedly) tag with a higher purpose. However, the buzz grows concerning the concept of “Web 3.0,” or, as Tim Berners-Lee refers to it, “semantic web” - the notion of web sites becoming web services, or intelligent computing by virtue of aggregating Web 2.0 applications and APIs into more robust tools for gathering meaningful information.

The Web world is a bit like Wall Street: once the news has hit the street, it’s already old and fuzzy. While some developers might move more quickly than the companies they work for, and hackers seem to work faster than the speed of light, the average user is just getting around to figuring out how to use a new feature on Google when a newer one is released. Forget the “why” anyone would want to use a new gimmick; it’s just cool and you(’re supposed to) want it.

Unfortunately, we mere mortals are intrigued by buzzwords and how au courant or intelligent their use might make us appear. I always thought a buzzword was meant to condense a whole lot of definition into one or two syllables. However, on the contrary, it causes mass confusion. The real problem that arises for us mortal web strategists is having to explain to our clients why AJAX isn’t the best solution for their entire external website, or why they just might not really want a wiki that no one wants to manage.

It also makes job hunting rather difficult, at times, when the recruiter or HR person hasn’t a clue what the word means, but, by golly, the client wants whatever it is!