Will Web2.0 change our society ?

The beginning or the end ?

I read in Data News tha Andreas Kluth, from the economist, said to the Trends magazine that "Web2.0, after the inevitables ups and downs, will change the society". See One of the best analysis of Social Web.

On the other end, according to Gartner, Blogs will start to decline in 2007 See here

So what will happen ?

What is Web2.0 ?

Web2.0 has two aspects :

• the web2.0 technology : the technology which allows to easilly create and consume content (Ajax, RSS, Podcasts, Youtube).
• the web2.0 philosophy : the principle that content is no more controlled by centralized multi-media companies (newspaper, television) or government but that there is now an alternative for getting information right from the source. Content created by the people for the people.

The technological aspect is not a driver for social networking, it's an enabler. As all technologies it will be replaced by an other one. (Which one is an interesting question. Most probably voice and video technologies which would allow to speed up the publishing process).

The web2.0 philosophy is the basis of social networkig and is here to stay.

Why would social networking stay? Why would people continue to blog ?

Blogging is just "one-to-many" communication

In order to know if blogs will decline we should carefully think about the incentives for people to blog.

Why do people blog ? People blog because they want to share things with a wider audience. Blog allow they to do 1:N (one-to-many) communications.

Remember some years ago, our mailboxes were full of jokes, funny images and powerpoint slideshows. A friend of mine even made jokes compilations see here (that he got on newsgroups but re-published as email because we continue to receive them by email).

Distributing multi-media content by email is not convenient. All providers and companies have set limits to email - they are now released thanks to innovations like single attachment storage and the cheaper cost of storage.

Blogging is a much better solution than email for one-to-many communication.

So the question is : will people continue to do one-to-many communication and blog ?

My answer is Yes.

Will blogging change our society ?

Now, if even people continue to blog, does it mean it will change our society ?

I don't think so.

Here are some reasons why :

• We have had many ways to communicate for a long time: books, phone, postal service, pubs, church, meetings. Did one of these really change the society ?
• People don't publish their real content : they protect it. How deep is the published content ? Who dares to write on the web what he says to friends ? Or if he publishes it, is it anonymously ?
• The percentage of the society that reads and/or writes the Internet and that could change the society is still small - my belief. And many of those who actually read and write it - "wealthy people" - don't want it to change. They will only publish content that will re-inforce the current society trends. People who give their content actually want to sell it...

To be continued

This article needs to be refactored and continued.

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