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jueves, agosto 24, 2006

The Internet as platform.


No sé si me convence tanto esa auto-denominación del “evangelizador de la Web 2.0” bajo la que se etiqueta O'Reilly. Sin embargo, es claro que este personaje –que se ha ganado su espacio en las páginas de la historia digital- tuvo mayor lucidez que el resto para prever la evolución tecnológica y articular una serie de cambios bajo este concepto híbrido, pero congregador de Web 2.0.

A continuación quiero ofrecer-destacar algunas ideas que O'Reilly recientemente ha publicado y que bien vale la pena tenerlas a mano:

  • “What I found most insightful […] was the idea that Web 2.0 is ultimately based on trust. That's a nice grace note when we think about architectures of participation. They do ultimately rely on trust…. The human spirit is a wonderful thing, and the fact that we can build applications that let us cooperate in new ways gives outlet to that spirit” (Levels of the Game: The Hierarchy of Web 2.0 Applications).

  • “Most of you probably know that I've been evangelizing an idea that I call Web 2.0, the idea that the internet is on the verge of replacing the personal computer as the dominant computing platform.”

  • That's the internet paradigm shift. The "computer" is no longer the device that you have on your desk. It's the seamless integration -- well, maybe there are still a few seams showing! -- the seamless integration of local computing devices (not just PCs but also handheld devices, all the way down to the phones that I hope you turned off during this ceremony) with vast server farms out on the net.”

  • “We're starting to understand how true it is, as Sun Microsystems co-founder John Gage famously said back in 1984, that "the network is the computer." It took over 20 years for the rest of the industry to realize that vision, but we're finally there.”

  • “A true Web 2.0 application is one that gets better the more people use it. Google gets smarter every time someone makes a link on the web. Google gets smarter every time someone makes a search.”

  • “It's for this reason that I argue that the real heart of Web 2.0 is harnessing collective intelligence….by providing opportunities for remote collaboration and commerce, the internet is accelerating the evolution of the global economy and global culture.”

  • Concentration of power: While it's easy to see the user empowerment and democratization implicit in web 2.0, it's also easy to overlook the enormous power that is being accrued by those who've successfully become the repository for our collective intelligence. Who owns that data? Is it ours, or does it belong to the vendor? (My Commencement Speech at SIMS)