Tuesday, January 27, 2009

"Response" to Previous

Update 12.28.09:  I just had to record for posterity the flames from some folks who tagged my previous post in Reddit.  (So much for polite, constructive discourse.)  In truth, I would like to have this conversation with some of these folks.  Even the harshest ones.  But I don't want to have to register for a service I don't use and I don't want to get into flame wars over comment threads.  I get the frustration.  I've experienced it.  I too have been and remain rather skeptical of the hype.  Some level of hype gets things noticed and forces conversations that need to happen but aren't.  Some of what I said was written and/or read poorly.  For example, Mac/Office is about culture, not interoperability.  I know that Google came before Web 2.0.   That was expressed poorly.  My company also was doing a lot of this stuff before we ever heard of Web 2.0.  I can't speak for Tim O'Reilly, but I feel confident he realizes he didn't invent something.  He made salient observations about the Internet and human behavior and how the two have, do, and perhaps ought to work together.  Many of these concepts go back decades to the roots of computer science and the Internet.  I've been in workshops with Senior Technical Fellows, having extremely well-qualified CVs, who said, "we proposed all this in the beginning."  My response was, "Exactly.  Isn't it past time we got back to that?" 


And I know how radical ("insane") my idea sounds, but I am not saying government should fund Web 2.0.  This is not about a bailout, as some seem to think.  Some of these comments come from the position of having no idea how government runs.  I'm saying government is actively spending money, money is being wasted, and I know from education and direct, relevant experience that several of the concepts articulated in the original essay can help tax paying citizens spend more wisely.

Consider this from the Army:

"The Army spends, under 85 programs, approximately $6.7B annually on Information Technology (I.T.) without a method to converge these systems into a centralized infrastructure designed to improve robustness and dynamically deliver web services to hundreds of thousands of users while reducing risk"

And that is just service within DoD, DoD just being one (the biggest) government spender on IT.  It's full of waste and the reason isn't just because Web 2.0 is magic Koolaid or that we are already on to so-called Web 3.0.  It is because the government still looks at the Web the way it used to be in the 90s; i.e., with a 1.0 mindset.

More concrete thoughts on this later on how exactly government might use Twitter, for example.  Think SMS.  Twitter is  a metaphor.  The folks who run Twitter - for example - just might be the Pros from Dover who can help save government from itself.  Think FEMA and USAID...

Here's the juicy stuff:


Haha, this nutbag thinks that the government should fund web 2.0. And he's serious.(kevincurry.blogspot.com)

submitted 4 days ago by candlejac

Kitchenfire 3 points 4 days ago[-]

""The Bigs," i.e., large-cap companies that provide most of the contracting labor, are not at all oriented to innovate in the Web 2.0 technology space. You don't see Macs anywhere. You do see MS Office everywhere. "

I wonder if this guy knows that Macs can run MS Office. Or that he's insane.

turkourjurbs 3 points 4 days ago[-]

"Google does a good job selling into government with its enterprise appliance model, and with more than just search. But, of course, Google is a massive company."

SIGH!!! Google was aroung long before Tim O'Reilly decided he needed more money, and made up a completely inaccurate and bullshit term to describe something we already have. Even if he didn't decide to look like a technological ignoramus, we'd still have Twitter, Facebook, etc. without calling them something that makes absolutely no sense at all.

Please, point out which "Web 2.0 Server" I should be using and which "Web 2.0" browsers will work with them. Every underlying technology that's considered "web 2.0" is the same technology that's been behind the web since before there was Web 2.0 We have the web. We have web sites. There is nothing more to it.

Maybe if we somehow get rid of the head nutbag (O'Reilly), the rest of the web 2.0 delusionists like this one will go with him.

skymt0 2 points 4 days ago[-]

Please, point out which "Web 2.0 Server" I should be using

That would be lighttpd, according to their home page.

cochico 1 point 4 days ago[-]

pffft! We're already working on Web 3.0

funkah 1 point 4 days ago[-]

Crazy, sure, but I'm not exactly loving the idea of giving tons of money to banks who lost hundreds of billions because of shitty risk analysis, either.

candlejac 1 point 4 days ago[-]

At least their risk analysis is better than Twitter's.

funkah 2 points 4 days ago[-]

I don't even know what that means.

candlejac 1 point 4 days ago* [-]

Twitter is a company with no business plan. They seriously are closest to the underpants gnomes

  1. Build website for 140 character microblog posts
  2. Pay carriers to send txts with updates to subscribers, while not charging for this service
  3. Pay to receive texts on a shortcode
  4. ???
  5. Profit!

grilled_ch33z 1 point 4 days ago* [-]

I'd argue that it's more like:

  • Build website for 140 character microblog posts
  • Pay carriers to send txts with updates to subscribers, while not charging for this service
  • Pay to receive texts on a shortcode
  • ???
  • ???

edit: how do you do numbered lists?

candlejac 2 points 4 days ago[-]

numbers and periods, but you must not know much about the underpants gnomes

Ac3 2 points 4 days ago[-]

Well he clearly will not profit.