Of Sheep and Men #9
Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an "architecture of participation," and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences.
Tim O'Reilly
Sheep live in herds. They flock. Just like birds, fish, instects...
Whatever the species, there are three simple rules that each individual creature seems to follow:
- Separation - avoid crowding neighbours
- Alignment - steer towards average heading of neighbours
- Cohesion - steer towards average position of neighbours
If all members of a flock follow those three simple rules, we can observe a phenomenon which has been dubbed an emergent behaviour, a superorganism which seems to move as a unified whole, as a single entity.
Why am I writing about it? Because many phenomena observable in nature often have their counterparts in much more complex and abstract systems, whose resemblance to natural processes is often overlooked or at least undervalued, or disregarded.
Exactly this phenomenon, the phenomenon of flocking, the law of separating yet aligning yet remaining cohesive, perfectly applicable to human societies, that is precisely what the future of the Internet will be.
The architecture of participation that so many tech-evangelists have pointed at in the recent months (among which, btw., O'Reilly seems to be a prominent figure, not merely a publisher of books and guides for geeks and nerds), the one that has exploded with the advent of blogs, rss and tag aggregators (for those who have no idea what I'm talking about, go: technorati.com, del.icio.us, flickr.com, blogger.com and watch all over for TAGS and FEEDS, and ponder for a moment where all of that comes from), wouldn't be possible ever, if human beings didn't want to stay close to other human beings.
Not physically. In the largest metros of the world we've already had enough.
We want to stay close. Humankind has reached another stage of its development. It wants to flock around IDEAS.
Common. Uncommon. Popular. Unpopular. Wise. Stupid.
Some will create them, others will just consume them, develop them, spread them forward.
Web 1.0 was about connecting computers and making technology more efficient for computers. Web 2.0 is about connecting people, and making technology for efficient for people.
And a week ago a group of entrepreneurial programmers from Palo Alto (which is btw. only a simple factoid, they could have come from Iceland and noone would care) released the first version of a new open source webbrowser, that encompasses all the social networking (yet another cool term for the architecture of participation) features: tagging, del.icio.us favorites, instant blogging etc. Whether this particular incarnation of the new generation of web browsers is a smashing hit (in my personal opinion: if they do their homework right, then yes) or a short-lived venture is not yet known.
But yes, those guys have made the connection, too. Unsurprisingly for me, the browser is called Flock.
Go ahead, try it out.
Appendix
This blog is a prime example of the emerging architecture of participation.
First of all, its supposed role is proliferation of ideas.
Second, the blog itself, and the individual posts as well, are tagged semantically (look below).
Third, it is an attempt at infecting you readers with my own passions and interests and therefore, my favorites ('starred' in Flock, automatically saved in del.icio.us and automatically published here) are available for all of you to follow (look right).
Tags: web2.0 flock
Why am I writing about it? Because many phenomena observable in nature often have their counterparts in much more complex and abstract systems, whose resemblance to natural processes is often overlooked or at least undervalued, or disregarded.
Exactly this phenomenon, the phenomenon of flocking, the law of separating yet aligning yet remaining cohesive, perfectly applicable to human societies, that is precisely what the future of the Internet will be.
The architecture of participation that so many tech-evangelists have pointed at in the recent months (among which, btw., O'Reilly seems to be a prominent figure, not merely a publisher of books and guides for geeks and nerds), the one that has exploded with the advent of blogs, rss and tag aggregators (for those who have no idea what I'm talking about, go: technorati.com, del.icio.us, flickr.com, blogger.com and watch all over for TAGS and FEEDS, and ponder for a moment where all of that comes from), wouldn't be possible ever, if human beings didn't want to stay close to other human beings.
Not physically. In the largest metros of the world we've already had enough.
We want to stay close. Humankind has reached another stage of its development. It wants to flock around IDEAS.
Common. Uncommon. Popular. Unpopular. Wise. Stupid.
Some will create them, others will just consume them, develop them, spread them forward.
Web 1.0 was about connecting computers and making technology more efficient for computers. Web 2.0 is about connecting people, and making technology for efficient for people.
And a week ago a group of entrepreneurial programmers from Palo Alto (which is btw. only a simple factoid, they could have come from Iceland and noone would care) released the first version of a new open source webbrowser, that encompasses all the social networking (yet another cool term for the architecture of participation) features: tagging, del.icio.us favorites, instant blogging etc. Whether this particular incarnation of the new generation of web browsers is a smashing hit (in my personal opinion: if they do their homework right, then yes) or a short-lived venture is not yet known.
But yes, those guys have made the connection, too. Unsurprisingly for me, the browser is called Flock.
Go ahead, try it out.
Appendix
This blog is a prime example of the emerging architecture of participation.
First of all, its supposed role is proliferation of ideas.
Second, the blog itself, and the individual posts as well, are tagged semantically (look below).
Third, it is an attempt at infecting you readers with my own passions and interests and therefore, my favorites ('starred' in Flock, automatically saved in del.icio.us and automatically published here) are available for all of you to follow (look right).
Tags: web2.0 flock
posted by ivanhoe1982 @ Monday, October 24, 2005
1 comments
1 Comments:
Nice and thoughtful blog.
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