EBlog

Content is still king in Web 2.0 (and will be in Web 3.0, BTW).

February 2, 2007 | Posted by: Nicholas

Relevant to both Lee’s latest web-centric thought of the day and many discussions about using “Web 2.0″ technologies and pushing content up to the site visitor… Check out this virtual tour of how Canon lenses are made. It gives me a huge amount of information in a few different forms - diagrams, text, and video - and uses the appropriate technologies to give this to me with a minimum of interface fluff - silly moving widgets, gratuitous animation, superfluous options, etc. To me, this is what “Web 2.0″ is about.

The base concepts behind “Web 2.0″ are nothing new, as far as I’m concerned. We’ve always said that “content is king” and have had a focus on what the site visitor wants. Many people have attached all sorts of things to what “Web 2.0″ means, but at its core I think this is it.

What “Web 2.0″ brings in is the other side of the web communication street. It’s not only about getting me - the site visitor - information. It’s about letting me give back information (blog comments, tagging, etc.) - to both the site owner and subsequent site visitors and letting that communication exchange make a better experience for all.

“Web 2.0″ has nothing to do with a “look” (rounded corners - totally out of fashion now, BTW, background gradients, moving interface objects, etc.). If anything, we are headed away from any control whatsoever over the look of the information sites are distributing with the growing popularity of RSS feeds, distributed and viral content delivery mechanisms like YouTube, and alternate media like podcasts and the ability for people to get (and share) information on alternate devices like internet-enabled phones and PDAs.

In the end, “content is king” is still the driving force, and it is our job as site architects, designers, and builders to deliver that content in ways that are the most appropriate for the audience.