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Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hey guys, and welcome to tex Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with

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Speaker 1: How Stuff Works in my Heart Radio and I love

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Speaker 1: all things tech. And today we're going to listen to

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Speaker 1: another classic episode. Because I'm still on vacation, I will

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Speaker 1: be back very soon, but today we're going to look

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Speaker 1: back on what was a real big buzzword or I

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Speaker 1: guess buzz phrase back in the day, which was web

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Speaker 1: two point oh that was used to describe lots of stuff.

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Speaker 1: It was a fairly vague term. So in this episode

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Speaker 1: I go into explain what was web two point oh?

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Speaker 1: What was the whole concept behind that. I hope you

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Speaker 1: enjoy this classic episode what is web two point oh?

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Speaker 1: But I think we've had enough time since then to

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Speaker 1: really take a look back and explore what the concept

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Speaker 1: of web two point was and what if anything is

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Speaker 1: taking its place, and does the term mean anything? Was

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Speaker 1: it just kind of a placeholder. It's gonna be a

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Speaker 1: lot of opinion in this because it's from my own

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Speaker 1: personal perspective, but honestly, if you've heard the term web

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Speaker 1: two point oh, and you always wondered what that meant.

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Speaker 1: That's what I want to cover today. But to start off,

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Speaker 1: we need to look at a history of the web itself.

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Speaker 1: And I'm sure you all know that the Web and

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Speaker 1: the Internet are two different things, but just in case,

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Speaker 1: let's lay down that groundwork. Now, the Internet refers to

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Speaker 1: the network of networks, this gigantic network of computer networks

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Speaker 1: that are all interconnected together. There's a series of connections

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Speaker 1: that allows computers to communicate with one another. So this

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Speaker 1: is an enormous system that allows all kinds of different

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Speaker 1: types of communication to go across it. And back in

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Speaker 1: the day, we used to talk about the Internet in

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Speaker 1: the terms of the information super highway. You might be

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Speaker 1: familiar with that term. So it was kind of the

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Speaker 1: infrastructure that allowed rapid communication across the globe and allowed

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Speaker 1: people who were on one computer network to communicate directly

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Speaker 1: with people who are on a totally separate computer network

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Speaker 1: because of this interconnectivity. Now the Web is just one

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Speaker 1: way to send and consume information on that super highway.

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Speaker 1: So you can think of it as a vehicle that

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Speaker 1: shares the super highway with other vehicles. So the Web

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Speaker 1: would be like a giant bus. And then you might

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Speaker 1: have a freight train that's or not freight train, but

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Speaker 1: a freight truck that's driving right next to it. That's

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Speaker 1: file transfer protocol, or a bunch of mail vehicles in

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Speaker 1: a I L that would stand for email, that kind

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Speaker 1: of stuff. These would all be traveling along the Internet.

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Speaker 1: None of them are the Internet. They're just a means

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Speaker 1: of communication that exists because the Internet is the platform

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Speaker 1: upon which they exist. So you access the Web through

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Speaker 1: a web browser. Big shock there, I'm sure we usually

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Speaker 1: refer to that as the client. Your machine with the

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Speaker 1: web browser is the client, and the browser or client

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Speaker 1: lets you request information from another machine on the Internet,

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Speaker 1: which we call a server. The server receives your request

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Speaker 1: in response to it sends the relevant data back to you.

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Speaker 1: And all of that has done through a visual interface.

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Speaker 1: In other words, you've got something rendered out as uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, something that's easy to to interpret and consume

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Speaker 1: within the browser, as opposed to a text based approach

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Speaker 1: that is, you know, marred by lots of code that

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Speaker 1: might be really confusing to you. Now, the path taken

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Speaker 1: by your request and the returning information isn't set in stone,

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Speaker 1: so this is different from roads. This is where the

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Speaker 1: road analogy really breaks down, because if you have a

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Speaker 1: set of roads between you and your destination, you might

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Speaker 1: be able to take a detour, or perhaps two detours.

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Speaker 1: If things are really bad, let's say there's flooding, you

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Speaker 1: can't get to where you are going using your normal routes.

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Speaker 1: But the way the Internet goes it's way more robust

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Speaker 1: than that. The information is delivered via packets. The packets

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Speaker 1: all can travel different pathways to get to their destination,

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Speaker 1: whereupon everything gets put back together and displayed for you.

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Speaker 1: Now that's not just for Web information. That's for all

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Speaker 1: information going across the Internet traffic. But it's uh one

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Speaker 1: of the reasons why the Internet is so useful. It's

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Speaker 1: that you don't have to worry if there is a

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Speaker 1: break in the communication lines between you and the web

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Speaker 1: server because the data can route around. That very important

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Speaker 1: if you have machines that are constantly going on and offline.

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Speaker 1: So back to the web. Now, the birthplace of the

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Speaker 1: World Wide Web is CERN. That's the same organization that

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Speaker 1: oversees the large hadron colliders. So we're talking particle physics

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Speaker 1: and loll cats all because of CERN. Thanks CERN specifically

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Speaker 1: say thanks to Tim berners Lee, who developed what would

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Speaker 1: become the basis of the Worldwide Web on a Next computer.

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Speaker 1: And uh, in case you're not familiar with what Next

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Speaker 1: is or was, really, it was a computer platform developed

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Speaker 1: by Steve Jobs after he had been forced from Apple.

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Speaker 1: So Apple forced Steve Jobs out of the company or

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Speaker 1: Steve Jobs quit, depending upon the person telling the story,

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Speaker 1: and as a result, Steve Jobs then went on to

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Speaker 1: found a new company called Next and develop a new

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Speaker 1: type of computer. Eventually he would come back to Apple. Essentially,

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Speaker 1: Apple begged Steve Jobs to return just as Apple was

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Speaker 1: on the brink of bankruptcy, and Next kind of faded away.

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Speaker 1: But it was the Next computer that Tim burners Lee

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Speaker 1: was using to develop web pages and the first web browser.

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Speaker 1: In fact, the first website was built in nine by

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Speaker 1: Tim berners Lee, and he hosted it on his own computer.

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Speaker 1: That site contained information about the purpose and structure of

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Speaker 1: the web, so kind of an explanation of what the

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Speaker 1: web would be capable of, and also a set of

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Speaker 1: instructions on how to create your own web server, because

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Speaker 1: obviously the web is only really useful if other people

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Speaker 1: start to join on Otherwise it's just kind of a

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Speaker 1: you know, you just logging remotely to someone else's computer.

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Speaker 1: It's not that exciting now. The browser he built was

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Speaker 1: called Worldwide Web. Just where we get that from, and

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Speaker 1: things continued along a lot of research centers and students

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Speaker 1: began to get access to the world Wide Web. But

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Speaker 1: things really took off on April three. That's when uh

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Speaker 1: CERN decided to release the Web to the general public,

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Speaker 1: meaning they made the information itself on how the web

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Speaker 1: works public and open. Along with the open license for

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Speaker 1: the Web, SERN offered a basic browser and a library

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Speaker 1: of code to help things move along, and it didn't

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Speaker 1: take long for other organizations and eventually people and companies

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Speaker 1: to join in. So also in three, the National Center

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Speaker 1: for super Computing Applications or in c s A released

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Speaker 1: Mosaic one point oh, and that became the first web

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Speaker 1: browser to really find popularity among the general public. At

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Speaker 1: this point, most of the people using the web were

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Speaker 1: still researchers and students, but gradually people outside of these

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Speaker 1: groups began to learn of the Web. It started to

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Speaker 1: get press coverage, and people began to get excited by

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Speaker 1: this concept of a computer network that you could access

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Speaker 1: and find real information and communicate with people in real time.

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Speaker 1: And here's a funny note. During this time, I was

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Speaker 1: in college, and my first impression of the Web at

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Speaker 1: that time was that it was slow, and it was

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Speaker 1: unattractive and it was superfluous. I had become used to

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Speaker 1: browsing the Internet using other means like tell net to

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Speaker 1: connect to chat rooms or games or whatever, or even

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Speaker 1: not full Internet access things like Bolton board systems, and

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Speaker 1: I just thought that the graphical approach to the Web

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Speaker 1: was completely unnecessary and slow things down. The browser had

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Speaker 1: to take time to get the information and render the

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Speaker 1: stuff you needed to see, and at the time, the

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Speaker 1: Internet connectivity and the power of computers meant that that

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Speaker 1: stuff took ages. And I just thought, well, who wants

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Speaker 1: to sit around forever to try and get this information

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Speaker 1: when you could get it so much faster using FTP

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Speaker 1: or tell net or whatever it may be, depending upon

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Speaker 1: the kind of information you're interested in. So I thought

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Speaker 1: the Web was probably a flash in the pan. It

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Speaker 1: would not be the last time I'd be radically wrong

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Speaker 1: about the technology you think I'd learned. At any rate,

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Speaker 1: by the Web was making headlines and e commerce became

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Speaker 1: a thing One of the earliest examples I could find

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Speaker 1: was that Pizza Hut sold a pizza online, actually allowing

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Speaker 1: customers to order pizza in some areas using the web.

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Speaker 1: The company Yahoo was founded around this time too, and

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Speaker 1: its main purpose at that time was to serve as

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Speaker 1: just a search engine to help search for the content

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Speaker 1: on the web, making it easier for people to find

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Speaker 1: stuff they wanted. Before search engines, it was pretty tough.

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Speaker 1: You had to be kind of you kind of had

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Speaker 1: to be part of the click that understood how the

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Speaker 1: web worked. Now today, we're all used to things like

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Speaker 1: you r l s where you have to type in

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Speaker 1: a web address. In fact, there may be a couple

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Speaker 1: of websites that you still navigate to by typing in

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Speaker 1: the web address, but not everyone is comfortable with that.

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Speaker 1: So search engines made it much easier for people to

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Speaker 1: interact with the web without having to memorize the protocol

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Speaker 1: that they would need in order to visit a specific website. Now,

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Speaker 1: much later than the early nineties, we look back on

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Speaker 1: the webs sites of this era as being pre Web

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Speaker 1: two point oh. For the most part, you could probably

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Speaker 1: call them web one point oh, but that's what we

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Speaker 1: call a retroonym, meaning we named it after the thing

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Speaker 1: had already happened. Uh. And it's kind of like World

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Speaker 1: War One. While World War One was going on, no

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Speaker 1: one referred to it as World War One. There had

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Speaker 1: not been a World War two yet, there'd be no

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Speaker 1: reason to call it world War one unless you expected

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Speaker 1: there to be another one, so you might use something else,

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Speaker 1: like the Great War. Uh. And it was only in

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Speaker 1: in a you know, in retrospect, when World War Two

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Speaker 1: broke out, that World War One really got that name.

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Speaker 1: So what actually defines web one point oh? For lack

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Speaker 1: of a better term, Not everyone even thinks web one

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Speaker 1: point oh is is a thing at all? Like it?

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Speaker 1: It doesn't make any sense, but some people will use

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Speaker 1: that term. But wasn't actually described well. The websites in

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Speaker 1: those days. Most of them were actually static pages, which

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Speaker 1: means you would navigate to a page and see what

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Speaker 1: was there, and after doing that, there'd probably be very

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Speaker 1: little reason to ever return to that page because it's

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Speaker 1: going to be pretty much the same. Uh. It's kind

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Speaker 1: of like the equivalent of a magazine or a book.

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Speaker 1: You know, if you go and you read a magazine

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Speaker 1: and you close the magazine, then you come back to it,

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Speaker 1: and you open it up to the same page, it's

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Speaker 1: going to be the same magazine article. It doesn't change

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Speaker 1: from one moment to the next. That's the way a

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Speaker 1: lot of websites were in the early days. We're gonna

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Speaker 1: make this episode even more dynamic and interactive in just

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Speaker 1: a moment, but first, let's take a quick break. Those

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Speaker 1: web pages didn't have any way for visitors to have

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Speaker 1: any kind of meaningful interaction on the site. At most,

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Speaker 1: there might be a visitor counter that would click up

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Speaker 1: a notch each time someone navigated to the website, and

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Speaker 1: those were a huge deal early on. I don't know

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Speaker 1: if you guys remember, but I remember lots of websites

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Speaker 1: having a visitor counter, and they took it as a

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Speaker 1: matter of pride when they passed a arbitrary milestone like

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Speaker 1: five thousand visitors or something like that. But there was

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Speaker 1: no way to leave comments or have any other impact

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Speaker 1: on the site for the most part for these types

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Speaker 1: of web pages. Now there were exceptions. Some websites were

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Speaker 1: dedicated to updating content regularly, or they were allowing people

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Speaker 1: to leave their own contributions, or even both of those

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Speaker 1: things at the same time. There was a student at

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Speaker 1: Swarthmore College named Justin Hall who started up a web page,

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Speaker 1: and originally it was just a collection of links that

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Speaker 1: he thought were particularly interesting. The website was called Justin's Links,

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Speaker 1: and not long after he started the site, he actually

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Speaker 1: just show a collection of links, and he saw it

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Speaker 1: as a way to publish his thoughts to a global audience,

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Speaker 1: people point to Justin's Links as being the first blog uh.

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Speaker 1: This sort of approach of using the web as sort

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Speaker 1: a lot of the web pages that were around at

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Speaker 1: the same time, but many sites lacked that sort of

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Speaker 1: dynamic approach, and at the same time, companies began to

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Speaker 1: The web was viewed as kind of a Wild West

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Speaker 1: type of territory in which a company could stake its

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Speaker 1: in the short term before everyone else caught up. Simultaneously,

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Speaker 1: several companies emerged that used the web as the very

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Speaker 1: foundation for the company itself. Some of them offered goods

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Speaker 1: using the web themselves. Others were targeting other companies and

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Speaker 1: they were offering up services meant to help businesses succeed.

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Speaker 1: But many of these lacked any sort of cohesive business plan,

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Speaker 1: which caused a big problem. They were offering up services

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Speaker 1: that some people found helpful, but they didn't have any

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Speaker 1: way of making money. And this obviously is not something

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Speaker 1: that's just gone away. We've seen this with lots of

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Speaker 1: different services, some of which exists solely as a means

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Speaker 1: to try and get acquired by other larger businesses. UH,

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Speaker 1: which can work if you have a great idea for

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Speaker 1: a service or app that people are going to really

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Speaker 1: enjoy using, but you don't have a way of generating

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Speaker 1: money from that. It might just be good enough to

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Speaker 1: get a lot of attention and then wait for someone

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Speaker 1: to offer to buy you. You know, maybe they'll figure

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Speaker 1: out a way of using it, or maybe they'll pair

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Speaker 1: it with stuff they already have, and that's how it

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Speaker 1: makes money. But back then, not having a plan just

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Speaker 1: wasn't really working for people. Towards the end of the

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Speaker 1: ninety nineties, web companies were sprouting up all over the place,

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Speaker 1: a millionaire overnight with some of these opportunities, and they

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Speaker 1: began to flood startup companies with cash. More than a

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Speaker 1: few of those startup companies ended up with way more

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Speaker 1: money than what they needed, and that encouraged some bad

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Speaker 1: decisions on the part of founders. A lot of founders

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Speaker 1: began to spend that excess cash by creating lavish headquarters

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Speaker 1: or crazy benefits for employees. Meanwhile, their businesses still didn't

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Speaker 1: have a way of making revenue. So, in other words,

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Speaker 1: let's say that you want to open up a lemonade stand,

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Speaker 1: and normally you would just need a few dollars to

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Speaker 1: buy some lemons and some sugar. You get some water,

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Speaker 1: and then you put all that together. Maybe you get

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Speaker 1: a little poster board to write up a sign. So

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Speaker 1: maybe you're starting budget is twenty dollars and you're selling

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Speaker 1: it for cents a cup, and you figure out that

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Speaker 1: after certain number of cups, you know you've got plenty

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Speaker 1: of of of supply. There after certain number of cups,

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Speaker 1: you're going to break even. Uh, and then after that's

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Speaker 1: all profit and you've got enough to make a decent

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Speaker 1: profit over your investment. Well, now imagine that you are

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Speaker 1: opening up that lemonade stand, but someone's given you twenty

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars and you don't have any way of scaling

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Speaker 1: up your operation, so you just spend that extra money

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Speaker 1: on a really nice lemonade stand and you know, a

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Speaker 1: super nifty titanium lemon crusher, that kind of stuff. It

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Speaker 1: doesn't help you make money in the long run. It

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Speaker 1: just means that's how you spent your your startup cash.

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Speaker 1: A lot of companies fell into this trap. You can

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Speaker 1: read about startups dot com industries in the late nineties

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Speaker 1: and how ridiculously lavish some of their offices were, and

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Speaker 1: it was a mess. So compounding that problem was the

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Speaker 1: fact that a lot of these companies were rewarding employees

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Speaker 1: by giving them shares of the company. Now, if everything

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Speaker 1: was working, fine, that's great, because those shares are worth

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Speaker 1: real money. Once you get to a point where the

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Speaker 1: employees are allowed to sell those shares, usually there's a

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Speaker 1: period where employees are not allowed to do that sort

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Speaker 1: of thing until they get to a particular point in

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Speaker 1: the fiscal year. But here's where the real problems came in,

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Speaker 1: because a lot of these companies began to falter when

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Speaker 1: people realized, hey, they don't really have a way of

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Speaker 1: making money and they can only keep treading water with

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Speaker 1: investment money for so long before everything falls apart. And

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Speaker 1: it was like a house of cards. It all fell down,

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Speaker 1: and it didn't all fall down on a single day.

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Speaker 1: It's not like there's a particular day you can point

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Speaker 1: to and say this is the day the bubble burst,

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Speaker 1: the bubble meaning this speculation bubble of the value of

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Speaker 1: dot com companies. Instead, it happened over a course of

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Speaker 1: years from nine thousand one essentially, and during that time,

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Speaker 1: people began to get more suspicious of dot com companies

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Speaker 1: that began to ask harder questions. The companies themselves were

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Speaker 1: starting to run out of that investment money, and because

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Speaker 1: they hadn't found a way to generate enough revenue, they

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Speaker 1: couldn't stay afloat, and a lot of them went completely

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Speaker 1: out of business. Some of them took serious hits to

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Speaker 1: their value. Amazon dot Com, for example, was around in

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Speaker 1: those days and for a while had shares that were

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Speaker 1: in the triple digit value, like over a hundred dollars

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Speaker 1: a share, but after the bubble burst it dropped to

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Speaker 1: less than ten dollars a share. Huge drop. But companies

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Speaker 1: like Amazon were large enough and and savvy enough to

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Speaker 1: wade through that time and emerge out the other side.

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Speaker 1: Not all companies were so lucky, And the worst part

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Speaker 1: of this is that those employees who had worked so

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Speaker 1: hard and had been rewarded in stock now found themselves

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Speaker 1: with worthless stock. The companies were bankrupt, so the shares

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Speaker 1: were not worth anything, and that was a huge issue.

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Speaker 1: So you had all these people who, for a while

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Speaker 1: on paper were millionaires and then suddenly they were broke,

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Speaker 1: or at least they weren't millionaires anymore. Many dot com

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Speaker 1: companies went on to business um and those that stayed

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Speaker 1: around people wanted to try and figure out, well, what

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Speaker 1: what set them apart, what made them different? How did

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Speaker 1: these companies survive, How did these websites make it through

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Speaker 1: the dot com bubble burst while so many others went away?

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Speaker 1: And that's where the term web two point oh really

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Speaker 1: comes into play. Now. Personally, I think it's a dumb term.

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Speaker 1: It's terrible. It suggests a chronological order, so it would

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Speaker 1: suggest that there was first Web one point oh and

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Speaker 1: then at some point there was a Web two point

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Speaker 1: oh release. Because it's very similar to the way we

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Speaker 1: look at software, for example, we're operating systems, but that's

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Speaker 1: not what this means. It's not the way it works.

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Speaker 1: So I think it's ultimately more confusing than helpful. But

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Speaker 1: that's what we have, uh. And the truth is that

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Speaker 1: both websites that were more in the Web one point

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Speaker 1: oh frame than the Web two point oh frame and

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Speaker 1: Web two point o websites existed at the same time.

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Speaker 1: In other words, this wasn't chronological. You can't point to

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Speaker 1: a date and say after this time all the websites

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Speaker 1: were Web two point oh. Even back in with Justin's links,

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Speaker 1: we start seeing Web two point oh philosophy working its

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Speaker 1: way into websites, and that was years before the dot

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Speaker 1: com bubble burst. So it's problematic using this term. But

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Speaker 1: at any rate, we need to look at what actually happened,

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Speaker 1: like why is this term around in the first place,

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Speaker 1: And that's because of the O'Reilly Media company. So in

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Speaker 1: two thousand four, Tim O'Reilly, who was the founder of

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Speaker 1: O'Reilly Media, and Dale Dougherty, who was a VP and

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Speaker 1: O'Reilly we're having a brainstorming session. They were trying to

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Speaker 1: come up with a an event that could really focus

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Speaker 1: on what makes a web company successful? Why were some

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Speaker 1: web companies able to survive while so many others failed.

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Speaker 1: What were the mistakes that the older websites made or

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Speaker 1: the failed websites made, and what were the success stories?

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Speaker 1: And so they started trying to think, well, how are

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Speaker 1: we going to define this, what's the what's the way

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Speaker 1: we create a catchy term to explain the new philosophy

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Speaker 1: of the web, the one that survived. And that's where

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Speaker 1: they came up with the term web two point oh.

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Speaker 1: And that was it. It was just to give a

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Speaker 1: name to a summit, the Web two point o Summit,

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Speaker 1: which took place in two thousand four, and they had

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Speaker 1: several since then. But they just wanted a way to say,

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Speaker 1: these are the type of websites that did all right

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Speaker 1: throughout the dot com by verse. These are the ones

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Speaker 1: that had the traits that allowed them to survive. Now,

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Speaker 1: in general, the qualities that define web two point oh

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Speaker 1: are that they tend to be dynamic pages rather than

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Speaker 1: static ones, meaning that there's a reason for you to

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Speaker 1: go back and look at it again. It's not something

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Speaker 1: that's going to be a page out of the encyclopedia

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Speaker 1: and it never ever changes. That makes it Web two

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Speaker 1: point oh. Another is that there tends to be some

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Speaker 1: way for users to generate content and submit it to

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Speaker 1: the website. That may be something along the lines of blogging,

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Speaker 1: where the users are journaling using the web page as

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Speaker 1: a place for their journal to go. Or it might

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Speaker 1: be social media site where they're just reaching out to

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Speaker 1: friends or sharing links or stories or jokes or whatever.

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Speaker 1: Or it might be something more akin to Amazon, where

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Speaker 1: users are able to review products that they've purchased, and

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Speaker 1: that adds value to Amazon because us future customers can

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Speaker 1: look at those reviews and make judgments, and then they

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Speaker 1: too can contribute to this system, and that makes the

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Speaker 1: whole experience of using Amazon more pleasant and robust and

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Speaker 1: useful to both the company and the consumer. These are

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Speaker 1: the sort of things that became known as the web

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Speaker 1: two point oh qualities. This dynamic approach with user generated content,

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Speaker 1: stuff that could be syndicated and be sent out across

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Speaker 1: multiple platforms. All of that was wrapped up in this,

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Speaker 1: and like I said, it does in fact cover things

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Speaker 1: like social media sites. If you look back on the

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Speaker 1: timeline of the major social media sites, they all emerged

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Speaker 1: after the dot Com bubble burst. There really weren't any

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Speaker 1: sites that kind of fall into that social media category

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Speaker 1: the way we think of today pre dot Com bubble burst.

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Speaker 1: Some of them were around right around then, like live journal,

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Speaker 1: but even then you would you could argue live Journal

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Speaker 1: was more of a blogging site and less of a

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Speaker 1: social media site. Things like Friendster and MySpace and Facebook,

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Speaker 1: all of those emerged after the dot Com bubble burst.

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Speaker 1: But they also embrace the philosophy of what O'Reilly was

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Speaker 1: calling web two point oh because those sites they aren't

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Speaker 1: valuable on their own. I mean, you don't go to

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Speaker 1: Facebook to see what Facebook has put up. You go

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Speaker 1: to Facebook to see what your friends are saying, or

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Speaker 1: to say something to your friends. It's the people who

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Speaker 1: are using the site that give it value, and that's

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Speaker 1: a big part of web two point oh. It and

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Speaker 1: in fact, it takes a lot of the pressure off

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Speaker 1: of the person creating the website. They have to make

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Speaker 1: it attractive enough for people to adopt it. But then

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Speaker 1: you just let the people make it important and you

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00:24:51,160 --> 00:24:54,520
Speaker 1: step back. Same thing is true for Twitter. Twitter just

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Speaker 1: facilitates communication. It's the people using Twitter that make it useful.

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Speaker 1: If no one jumped on Twitter, it wouldn't be around.

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Speaker 1: There are other services that were similar to Twitter, some

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Speaker 1: of which people thought were superior to Twitter, but they

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Speaker 1: didn't get adopted as quickly, and they, for the most part,

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Speaker 1: are not around anymore. While we're on our journey to

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Speaker 1: Web three point oh, I guess let's uh, let's take

435
00:25:20,600 --> 00:25:22,960
Speaker 1: arrest here. We're gonna take a quick break to thank

436
00:25:23,000 --> 00:25:34,000
Speaker 1: our sponsor. So Web two point oh kind of points

437
00:25:34,040 --> 00:25:38,840
Speaker 1: to this idea of embracing the consumer as a an

438
00:25:38,920 --> 00:25:43,240
Speaker 1: integral part of your web presence. They're not just an audience,

439
00:25:43,680 --> 00:25:47,400
Speaker 1: They're a contributor in some way. And you could argue

440
00:25:47,400 --> 00:25:49,680
Speaker 1: the web two point oh isn't so much an evolution

441
00:25:49,760 --> 00:25:52,360
Speaker 1: as it is just a different approach to creating an

442
00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:55,840
Speaker 1: experience on the web, which also makes it difficult to

443
00:25:55,840 --> 00:25:58,159
Speaker 1: talk about what comes next. I mean, is there a

444
00:25:58,200 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker 1: web three point oh? Does that even mean anything? Now?

445
00:26:03,080 --> 00:26:05,959
Speaker 1: I would argue that we definitely have seen more evolution

446
00:26:06,119 --> 00:26:10,240
Speaker 1: on the web since O'Reilly coined the web two point

447
00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:14,680
Speaker 1: oh term, particularly when it comes to stuff like data tracking,

448
00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:18,360
Speaker 1: that's huge, way bigger than it was in the mid

449
00:26:18,400 --> 00:26:21,840
Speaker 1: two thousand's. Because of data tracking, sites can customize a

450
00:26:21,920 --> 00:26:25,679
Speaker 1: user's experience and serve up advertising that is calculated to

451
00:26:25,720 --> 00:26:30,200
Speaker 1: be more effective for that user. And depending upon the implementation,

452
00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:34,680
Speaker 1: data tracking can be downright scary. And it turns out

453
00:26:34,720 --> 00:26:37,159
Speaker 1: you don't have to share that much data before a

454
00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:40,480
Speaker 1: computer can figure out who you are. Stuff that seems

455
00:26:40,520 --> 00:26:43,080
Speaker 1: really general, like just a zip code, can be enough

456
00:26:43,119 --> 00:26:46,320
Speaker 1: to narrow down just a few candidates. So if I

457
00:26:46,400 --> 00:26:49,920
Speaker 1: put my zip code in and I have just maybe

458
00:26:49,960 --> 00:26:52,920
Speaker 1: two or three other points of data, that might be

459
00:26:53,080 --> 00:26:56,560
Speaker 1: enough for an algorithm to really narrow down between me

460
00:26:56,680 --> 00:26:59,400
Speaker 1: and maybe one or two other people who I could

461
00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:04,680
Speaker 1: possibly be. It's actually pretty, you know, surprising, how little

462
00:27:04,680 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 1: information you need to share for that sort of stuff

463
00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:11,160
Speaker 1: to happen. Also, we know that data tracking can be misused,

464
00:27:11,400 --> 00:27:16,520
Speaker 1: either intentionally or not. There's the story about Target sending

465
00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:20,680
Speaker 1: the young woman uh some a young woman some some

466
00:27:21,000 --> 00:27:25,960
Speaker 1: coupons for expected mothers, and her father found out about

467
00:27:25,960 --> 00:27:30,520
Speaker 1: it and was really upset at Target because he thought

468
00:27:30,560 --> 00:27:34,080
Speaker 1: they had misidentified her. His daughter as being pregnant, and

469
00:27:34,119 --> 00:27:36,199
Speaker 1: then later on he found out that in fact she

470
00:27:36,359 --> 00:27:39,000
Speaker 1: was pregnant. But the whole point of that is that

471
00:27:39,040 --> 00:27:41,479
Speaker 1: Target was trying to be proactive and helpful, but in

472
00:27:41,600 --> 00:27:47,399
Speaker 1: fact caused a ruckus. It was a little too overenthusiastic

473
00:27:47,440 --> 00:27:50,159
Speaker 1: of a response, as it turns out, and that's largely

474
00:27:50,280 --> 00:27:53,320
Speaker 1: due to data tracking. You don't even have to identify

475
00:27:53,400 --> 00:27:55,520
Speaker 1: a person or to create a problem. It's not like

476
00:27:55,600 --> 00:27:59,439
Speaker 1: Target knew specifically who this young lady was. They just

477
00:27:59,480 --> 00:28:02,760
Speaker 1: identified that based upon our searches, she must be pregnant.

478
00:28:03,800 --> 00:28:06,960
Speaker 1: That's a problem. And we're seeing data tracking used and

479
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:12,280
Speaker 1: everything from innocent or at least seemingly innocent approaches like, well,

480
00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:14,720
Speaker 1: you bought this one product, so here are five other

481
00:28:14,760 --> 00:28:18,320
Speaker 1: products that you will probably like based upon your preferences

482
00:28:18,359 --> 00:28:22,600
Speaker 1: that we've seen so far. That's not that creepy, But

483
00:28:22,680 --> 00:28:27,480
Speaker 1: there are other approaches where data tracking is downright sinister.

484
00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:30,240
Speaker 1: And I would argue that's a major part of the

485
00:28:30,280 --> 00:28:32,840
Speaker 1: web experience now, whether you're aware of it or not,

486
00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:36,520
Speaker 1: but it's definitely something that has evolved since Web two

487
00:28:36,600 --> 00:28:40,160
Speaker 1: point oh. But another real jump in the evolution of

488
00:28:40,200 --> 00:28:43,400
Speaker 1: the web comes to us because of mobile devices. Now.

489
00:28:44,240 --> 00:28:47,280
Speaker 1: O'Reilly recognized the importance of mobile devices all the way

490
00:28:47,280 --> 00:28:52,960
Speaker 1: back in two thousand four. O'Reilly Media said that interoperability

491
00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:55,400
Speaker 1: was one of the features of Web two point one

492
00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:59,560
Speaker 1: of the cornerstones of the philosophy, meaning that you should

493
00:28:59,600 --> 00:29:05,160
Speaker 1: be able to access this web page from multiple platforms,

494
00:29:05,720 --> 00:29:09,200
Speaker 1: whether it's a computer or a mobile device of some

495
00:29:09,280 --> 00:29:12,280
Speaker 1: sort or something else. Now, in two thousand and four,

496
00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:15,800
Speaker 1: there were really not that many devices that you could

497
00:29:15,920 --> 00:29:19,560
Speaker 1: use to connect to the web non in a meaningful way.

498
00:29:19,600 --> 00:29:21,480
Speaker 1: A lot of the phones that were out there were

499
00:29:21,560 --> 00:29:23,960
Speaker 1: more like, you know, they have text browsers for the web,

500
00:29:24,080 --> 00:29:26,440
Speaker 1: so you could read some text on certain web pages.

501
00:29:26,960 --> 00:29:31,640
Speaker 1: It was pretty limited. It wasn't until the smartphone really

502
00:29:31,680 --> 00:29:34,160
Speaker 1: took off here in the United States. That means it

503
00:29:34,360 --> 00:29:37,600
Speaker 1: was after the introduction of the iPhone that you really

504
00:29:37,600 --> 00:29:42,040
Speaker 1: started seeing that. So you get to a point now

505
00:29:42,160 --> 00:29:45,120
Speaker 1: where more and more people are using mobile devices to

506
00:29:45,160 --> 00:29:49,200
Speaker 1: access the web. I meant that web developers had to

507
00:29:49,240 --> 00:29:53,160
Speaker 1: make sure they were paying closer attention to the mobile

508
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:58,320
Speaker 1: experience because if they ignored it, then a larger portion

509
00:29:58,360 --> 00:30:01,720
Speaker 1: of their audience was going to get upset with how

510
00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:06,520
Speaker 1: how clunky or unpleasant it was to access the website

511
00:30:06,640 --> 00:30:09,880
Speaker 1: using a mobile device, and in fact it's more important

512
00:30:09,880 --> 00:30:15,360
Speaker 1: than ever now. Uh. Just recently we've seen mobile browsing

513
00:30:15,760 --> 00:30:22,160
Speaker 1: outpace desktop browsing. In other words, more more website visits

514
00:30:22,280 --> 00:30:25,720
Speaker 1: are coming from mobile devices than desktop computers. That happened

515
00:30:25,760 --> 00:30:28,600
Speaker 1: for the first time about a year ago, a little

516
00:30:28,640 --> 00:30:32,200
Speaker 1: more than a year ago, and now we're seeing that

517
00:30:32,880 --> 00:30:35,720
Speaker 1: more people are using mobile devices to access the web. Now,

518
00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:38,520
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that people have slacked off of using

519
00:30:38,560 --> 00:30:43,080
Speaker 1: desktop computers or laptops. People still are using those devices.

520
00:30:43,080 --> 00:30:45,480
Speaker 1: In fact, if you look at the trends, they're still

521
00:30:45,520 --> 00:30:49,160
Speaker 1: increasing year over year. So in two thousand fifteen, there

522
00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:52,080
Speaker 1: are more people accessing the web on desktops than there

523
00:30:52,080 --> 00:30:55,280
Speaker 1: were in two thousand fourteen. It's just that the growth

524
00:30:55,400 --> 00:31:01,040
Speaker 1: of mobile devices has skyrocketed, so it has outpaced the

525
00:31:01,080 --> 00:31:04,680
Speaker 1: growth of desktops, so both of them are up. It's

526
00:31:04,720 --> 00:31:09,000
Speaker 1: just mobile devices have increased much faster than desktop has.

527
00:31:10,280 --> 00:31:13,520
Speaker 1: But that means you have to pay attention to the

528
00:31:13,560 --> 00:31:18,080
Speaker 1: experience that your customers have. Your audience has both on

529
00:31:18,200 --> 00:31:20,280
Speaker 1: mobile and on desktop. You want to make sure that

530
00:31:20,360 --> 00:31:24,280
Speaker 1: it is attractive and usable and that people are able

531
00:31:24,360 --> 00:31:27,480
Speaker 1: to get the experience they want depending up. You know,

532
00:31:27,560 --> 00:31:29,720
Speaker 1: no matter what platform they happen to be using, whether

533
00:31:29,800 --> 00:31:33,200
Speaker 1: it's a tablet or a smartphone, or a console or

534
00:31:34,080 --> 00:31:38,600
Speaker 1: uh desktop computer, it needs to be a satisfying experience.

535
00:31:39,200 --> 00:31:41,920
Speaker 1: So I would argue that is now really a defining

536
00:31:41,960 --> 00:31:45,320
Speaker 1: feature of the web. And if I had to define

537
00:31:45,760 --> 00:31:48,440
Speaker 1: web three point oh, I'd likely argue that it has

538
00:31:48,480 --> 00:31:51,320
Speaker 1: to do with both the data tracking and the mobile

539
00:31:51,360 --> 00:31:55,600
Speaker 1: devices more than pretty much anything else. But web experiences

540
00:31:55,640 --> 00:31:58,760
Speaker 1: are becoming more customized to the individual browsers. So that

541
00:31:58,880 --> 00:32:03,080
Speaker 1: could mean that one day will move into the era

542
00:32:03,160 --> 00:32:06,960
Speaker 1: of the semantic web. Now, the semantic web is where

543
00:32:07,560 --> 00:32:10,800
Speaker 1: your experience will be very much personalized, and the web

544
00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:13,760
Speaker 1: itself will understand what it is you want to see

545
00:32:14,440 --> 00:32:19,640
Speaker 1: based upon context, word choice, your preferences, all of these

546
00:32:19,680 --> 00:32:22,000
Speaker 1: things that are wrapped up in things like data tracking

547
00:32:22,040 --> 00:32:25,400
Speaker 1: and understanding of natural language, that kind of stuff. We're

548
00:32:25,400 --> 00:32:28,120
Speaker 1: seeing a lot of development in that area. So maybe

549
00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:31,360
Speaker 1: one day we'll have a semantic web where when I

550
00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:33,800
Speaker 1: talk about surfing the web and when you talk about

551
00:32:33,800 --> 00:32:35,920
Speaker 1: serving the web, it will be two very different stories

552
00:32:35,960 --> 00:32:40,080
Speaker 1: because of our different styles. That's a possibility, but I

553
00:32:40,120 --> 00:32:42,440
Speaker 1: also think it's really likely we're gonna see the web

554
00:32:42,480 --> 00:32:47,360
Speaker 1: experience fracture as more services attempt to leverage various platforms.

555
00:32:48,240 --> 00:32:49,840
Speaker 1: Now what do I mean by that? It's starting to

556
00:32:49,840 --> 00:32:53,080
Speaker 1: sound like I'm talking business talk. But here's the simple

557
00:32:53,920 --> 00:32:58,680
Speaker 1: example that I'll use to illustrate my point. Think about Netflix.

558
00:32:59,440 --> 00:33:03,280
Speaker 1: So net extreaming has seen a ton of success over

559
00:33:03,320 --> 00:33:07,160
Speaker 1: the past few years. Put aside their their library of

560
00:33:07,240 --> 00:33:11,280
Speaker 1: movies and television series, which obviously mean that's that's problematic,

561
00:33:11,320 --> 00:33:16,040
Speaker 1: but the adoption of Netflix has been phenomenal, and I

562
00:33:16,080 --> 00:33:19,480
Speaker 1: would argue that our large reason for that is because

563
00:33:19,520 --> 00:33:23,400
Speaker 1: you weren't limited to computers or mobile devices to access Netflix.

564
00:33:23,440 --> 00:33:25,920
Speaker 1: You can access it on set top boxes, on video

565
00:33:25,920 --> 00:33:30,040
Speaker 1: game consoles, and more. Pretty much if the device was

566
00:33:30,120 --> 00:33:34,280
Speaker 1: capable of connecting to the internet. Netflix made sure it

567
00:33:34,320 --> 00:33:38,760
Speaker 1: could have some kind of platform on that device. They

568
00:33:38,760 --> 00:33:41,959
Speaker 1: wanted to get on everything they possibly could, and it

569
00:33:42,040 --> 00:33:46,040
Speaker 1: meant that they had widespread adoption. Beyond that, they were

570
00:33:46,080 --> 00:33:49,120
Speaker 1: really smart on the back end. They built out a

571
00:33:49,160 --> 00:33:51,800
Speaker 1: system so that you could have a kind of seamless

572
00:33:51,880 --> 00:33:55,480
Speaker 1: experience moving from one device to another. So if I

573
00:33:55,520 --> 00:33:58,320
Speaker 1: start watching a movie under my Netflix account, on my

574
00:33:58,440 --> 00:34:02,040
Speaker 1: laptop computer, and then I come home and I turn

575
00:34:02,120 --> 00:34:05,600
Speaker 1: on my video game console and I launched my Netflix app.

576
00:34:05,640 --> 00:34:08,000
Speaker 1: I can pick up where I left off because on

577
00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:11,040
Speaker 1: the back end, it's tracking everything. The same is true

578
00:34:11,080 --> 00:34:14,279
Speaker 1: for other services like YouTube. It's another great example. There

579
00:34:14,280 --> 00:34:17,680
Speaker 1: are YouTube smartphone apps and tablet apps and video game

580
00:34:17,719 --> 00:34:22,000
Speaker 1: console apps, and uh, that's the same sort of thing.

581
00:34:22,040 --> 00:34:26,080
Speaker 1: My experience on one can translate over to another so

582
00:34:26,120 --> 00:34:29,840
Speaker 1: that I can keep on building out this profile of

583
00:34:29,880 --> 00:34:34,000
Speaker 1: what I like, and YouTube will continuously suggest other videos

584
00:34:34,040 --> 00:34:37,640
Speaker 1: that are similar to ones that I've really enjoyed, which

585
00:34:37,719 --> 00:34:40,640
Speaker 1: might be why I have so many videos of dogs

586
00:34:40,680 --> 00:34:44,279
Speaker 1: on skateboards, or that could just be coincidence. I don't

587
00:34:44,280 --> 00:34:46,759
Speaker 1: really understand how it works behind the scenes. At any rate,

588
00:34:47,280 --> 00:34:51,440
Speaker 1: it's really interesting to me that that could potentially be

589
00:34:51,560 --> 00:34:54,600
Speaker 1: the new era. It's not so much a Web three

590
00:34:54,640 --> 00:34:57,279
Speaker 1: point oh as it could be a let's, you know,

591
00:34:57,360 --> 00:35:01,759
Speaker 1: let's look at how we can make our service across

592
00:35:01,800 --> 00:35:05,120
Speaker 1: all different platforms so people can access it however they want,

593
00:35:06,200 --> 00:35:08,600
Speaker 1: and that goes beyond Web. In fact, Web might be

594
00:35:08,680 --> 00:35:11,960
Speaker 1: too limited a term to use for that sort of thing,

595
00:35:13,200 --> 00:35:15,920
Speaker 1: which means we kind of need a new term for it.

596
00:35:15,960 --> 00:35:18,920
Speaker 1: We need to come up with a word that explains

597
00:35:19,160 --> 00:35:23,839
Speaker 1: this particular world one where you have these services that

598
00:35:24,320 --> 00:35:27,520
Speaker 1: go across all sorts of platforms, allowing you to access

599
00:35:27,520 --> 00:35:30,360
Speaker 1: it however you like. And I think I've come up

600
00:35:30,400 --> 00:35:35,399
Speaker 1: with a name. I'm calling it Frank. Frank's nice name.

601
00:35:36,040 --> 00:35:39,879
Speaker 1: Robin Day's got a hedgehog called Frank. But seriously, I'd

602
00:35:39,960 --> 00:35:42,759
Speaker 1: rather just kind of ditch the web two point oh

603
00:35:42,880 --> 00:35:46,000
Speaker 1: term altogether, which might be a moot point. I don't

604
00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:49,640
Speaker 1: know that anyone's still talking about web two point oh. Seriously,

605
00:35:49,960 --> 00:35:52,320
Speaker 1: it's kind of a non term at this point. But

606
00:35:52,360 --> 00:35:54,839
Speaker 1: I'd like to just erase it because I think web

607
00:35:54,840 --> 00:35:57,319
Speaker 1: two point oh was too confusing a term. I think

608
00:35:57,320 --> 00:36:01,960
Speaker 1: it misled people. It It compares the Web to things

609
00:36:02,040 --> 00:36:06,960
Speaker 1: like software patches or software versions, and that's not accurate. Um,

610
00:36:07,160 --> 00:36:09,560
Speaker 1: I really wish we could come up with a different

611
00:36:09,640 --> 00:36:15,799
Speaker 1: phrase for that particular the idea that doesn't suggest an evolution,

612
00:36:15,920 --> 00:36:18,839
Speaker 1: because it really was kind of a divergent path, not

613
00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:21,480
Speaker 1: so much that one evolved into the other, but one

614
00:36:21,520 --> 00:36:25,040
Speaker 1: approach was more successful than the other. I hope you

615
00:36:25,120 --> 00:36:27,920
Speaker 1: guys enjoyed that classic episode of tech Stuff. If you

616
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:31,239
Speaker 1: have any suggestions for future episodes, you can contact me,

617
00:36:31,360 --> 00:36:34,600
Speaker 1: write me at tech stuff at how stuff works dot com,

618
00:36:34,719 --> 00:36:37,839
Speaker 1: or pop on by our website that's tech stuff podcast

619
00:36:37,920 --> 00:36:40,840
Speaker 1: dot com that has links to our social media presence,

620
00:36:41,080 --> 00:36:44,480
Speaker 1: also has links to the entire archive of all of

621
00:36:44,520 --> 00:36:48,040
Speaker 1: our episodes and a link to our online store, where

622
00:36:48,040 --> 00:36:49,880
Speaker 1: every purchase you make goes to help the show and

623
00:36:49,880 --> 00:36:52,640
Speaker 1: we greatly appreciate it, and I'll talk to you again

624
00:36:53,400 --> 00:37:01,920
Speaker 1: really soon from more on this and thousands of other topics.

625
00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:12,880
Speaker 1: Is that how stuff works dot com. M