Thoughts on Web 2.0

As I near the end of the Web 2.0 project I can't help but reflect on "what does this all mean"? Surely I have played with some neat tools and I currently have more online accounts than "Carter has Pills" but what did I learn? What will I use, what will change the landscape of the future of my career and the library profession?

All of it, some of it, none of it?

So in looking for an answer to this ongoing question, most of my "Learning 2.0" was spent "lurking". I have read most every ones blogs. I find my answers in the Devils Advocate. So I looked for meaning in everyone else questions, criticisms and praise.

Probably the universal phrase that sticks in my head the most is this, "cool, but what will I use it for?" or something along those lines. Did I find many of these points valid? Yes. Did I find many of these points somewhat jaded? Yes. Was this all for a MP3 player?

It wasn't all like that. I did read PLEANTY of praise for many of the lessons and the resources but that is preaching to the converted. Reading unbridled enthusiasm wasn't as interesting to me.

Reading the posts that questioned or criticised some of the lessons were what stuck with me the most. And I must confess I experienced some of these same questions myself. While my posts avoided any praise or criticism of the resources, I took the approach of simply "using the tools for my own entertainment." I was more interested in "incorporating" the tools into my blog than I was concerned with "evaluating" them. I had a few reasons for doing this in the beginning, but the biggest reason didn't really resonate with me until I started to read the other participants evaluations of the tools and the process in general.

Which brings me back to why the criticisms of the tools bothered me. Why they stuck in my head. Surely there really weren't that many of them. And a good quantitative analysis of everyones blogs would prove that the overall experience was positive. Was it just the side of me that likes to play Devil's Advocate? No.

It occured to me what the 2.0 Exercise was all about. We weren't evaluating databases for inclusion. We were charged with the mission to take a fresh new look at where the internet is today. To many younger users this may not seem like much, but to those of us who were using the web when Netscape was King we hadn't been faced with a good hard look at what has changed online. We forget those moments when "Ebay" and "Amazon" where all new. These things were as fresh an innovative as when MTV actually played Music Videos. But the web had seemed to grow stale on us. And in reality the web had evolved. Not dramatically. And certainly, these tools aren't quite moving from primordial oooze to walking erect in one step, but they are showing a direction, a shift the web is making.

Many of these tools are mearly sticky ideas that you can throw at a wall. Some will stick for a while and some will fall and land on the floor with a resonating thud similar to the crash of the tech stock boom. Many of these sites and tools appear to be more interested in becoming the next YouTube, hoping to cash in on that big Billion Dollar Deal from Google while hoping to sneak out just in time to avoid the copyright lawsuits.

But it is our job to find application when and where we can. We now have a Web 2.0 Toolbox to look through. You don't stare in the hardware store and think "boy I could use a 'impact driver'". But when the day comes when you strip a screw you now know that there is a tool for the job.