Of course there are some timeless classic ideas that never stay out of fashion for long and Web 2.0 probably has more then its fair share of them, but that won’t keep the fashion industry from decreeing the geek equivalent of “pink is the new black” (as my daughters told me a year or two ago) and then “black is the new pink” (I believe I saw this somewhere recently).

“Now if we could just get you off the WS-I uber alles cool aid ” — is that addressed to me, Microsoft, or who? I’ve never imbibed of that beverage if you mean the WS-I literally. If you mean the WS-* stuff, well it depends on what the meaning of is is :-) I try to be informed but skeptical about that stuff too — it has its place, Indigo might just possibly be a tipping point for the target audience (intranet / corporate developers, I think), but it will probably not dominate on the open web where Web 2.0 memes have taken root.

If you mean Microsoft, I think it’s important to understand that Evil Empire Central does not pass out the KoolAid and make everyone drink it. Rather it’s sortof a chaotic system where some dominant themes such as Indigo / WS-* become strange attractors and get a lot of ideas circling around them, but there are an awful lot of other ideas bouncing around too. As Dare O. in particular makes clear, there is a haven for Web 2.0-ish ideas at MSN, a fair amount of sympathy for REST-like ideas in the SQL Server organization, etc. If the dominant themes actually work, they continue to have a lot of things circling around them. If not (”Bob”? Passport? WinFS so far? The idea that IE is an integral part of the OS?) their attractive power will diminish and new ones will emerge … and yes, the PR people will then start touting the new flavor of KoolAid. But don’t confuse the KoolAid with the more nourishing and caffeineated beverages that actualy make the place run.

As Ryan says tomorrow, enterprise software is a social phenomenon. Aren’t all phenomena social?

I agree with Stephen (strange how often I do, some weird hive mind shit). Arguing against Ajax or Web 2.0 is kind of like arguing against the war on terror. or arguing against Al Quada for that matter. Its amorphous, ugly, and in the case of TWOT case, just plain wrong, but you can’t deny the social energy supporting the ideas, and the outcomes they create. We can’t avoid hype any more than we can avoid excitement and disgust.

AJAX and Web 2.0 are movements, not technologies. You can compete against a technology using technology but you can’t compete against a social (or bowel) movement using technology.

Tim talks about faux memes. For it to be faux it would have to be unsuccessful.

Its a fashion industry, folks, whether the engineer inside likes it or not. Say what you want about AJAX, who invented it, or whatever. But you can’t deny the energy and outcomes the idea has generated. Full credit to adaptive path. Talk about a thousand flowers. So what if MS put forward the technology initially. What matters is how we use technology. There is nothing new in IT (danny sabbah).

Remember the file and print revolution? That was a revolution of language, as much as technology. Language created a context for things to get done. “Oh that’s what you mean” - that is a great idea. An entire community of third parties, a powerful new vendor, Novell, later displaced by Microsoft, a whole new way of thinking about delivering services to end-users… that end users and lines of business could understand. Language holds communities together and in effect creates possible outcomes.

The technology industry is an ongoing, ever evolving and mutating battle of ideas, and memes like Web 2.0 carry powerful payloads.

I will fight for my right to remix.
I believe in loosely coupled services.
I believe that DRM adds nothing to the customer experience.

Web 2.0 is a manifesto not a technology.

Ajax too.

I have been meaning to blog on this, but it came out as a rant here

general tools for discussion - yes!

As for hype alarms - what about passport, web services, or any number of MS initiatives.. its part of the blocking and tackling of business today.

Finally though Mike holds the ideal position. the zen of informed skepticism. Now if we could just get you off the WS-I uber alles cool aid we could make some progress here…. ;-)

The way I see it, these terms (”AJAX”, “Web 2.0″, “SOA”, “ESB”, “Open Source”, “REST”, etc) are taken up by some community because they agree (or think they agree) at some basic level on future direction. They serve less as marketing terms initially and more as general tools for discussion. Or perhaps tools that are used to market ideas to other people that might be able to lend more definition to the simple meme.

What happens from there can be something great or something shitty - we’ve seen both. What we might be seeing with these terms is the process of ideas forming followed by either solidification or failure as it’s happening, which is kind of new and weird. Ideas are no longer something formed only by an individual or closed group but something that can evolve out in the open. That seems to have pros and cons.

In general there’s a lot of confusion around what stage one of these ideas are in and then you have ideas that are mislabeled. I think “REST” is a good example of this. There’s the formal definition and then a kind of vague promise as to what systems following certain aspects of its design might be capable of. But most people don’t mean Fielding-proper-REST when they talk about it and confussion ensues.

In the end, I think what we’re seeing is a process evolving that might be studied and better understood. You have an incubation phase where the fitness of a meme is measured followed by either quick solidification into an actual concrete term (e.g. “AJAX” possibly) or long drawn-out debate and eventual failure (e.g. SOA).

Which way will “Web 2.0″ go? It’s probably too early to tell but placing the blame for certain terms’ eventual failure to manifest themselves as concrete things on the act of creating a term seems a mis-diagnosis. Some ideas will succeed, some will fail. Saying that people shouldn’t throw ideas out until they are fully defined seems like a sure way of decreases both potential successes and failures.

Also, there’s no doubt that HTTP, XML, etc have made it far easier to share data, but beware of somewhat grandiose statements such as “Future franchises will be built around access to data not access to software.” The chances are that we will continue to use both approaches, and their relative popularity will oscillate. About the only advantage I know from being an old fart is that you see this stuff come and go: data-centric vs code-centric, declarative vs procecedural, dyanmic vs static languages, design first vs code first (or test first), etc. The only certainly :-) is that what’s obvious to the trendy cognoscenti today will sound pathetically clueless in a decade … and trendy again in about 25 years. Heathly skepticism about all the hype and grand theories — from friends as well as foes — is the only antidote I know.

Ryan, You have no idea. I feel like I just burgled the place!

i think all of us in the technology business (myself included) have a tendency to look at terminology and naming too literally (witness all the hideously unwieldy product names out there) and forget that, for most people, the technology doesn’t matter. if Joe User looks at Web 2.0 and thinks “more functional web site,” i’d argue it has some utility.

but neither do i have anything vested in the term, so if someone comes up with something better that more accurately explains the transition - gradual though it may be - i’ll give it fair consideration.