I Own The Internet. Thoughts On ‘Web 2.0′
On March 21 some bloggers on LiveJournal held a “strike”, arranging a day of non-posting. This protest was in response to changes instigated by the new owners of Livejournal, the Russian based internet company SUP.
The reason for this strike was that from March 13 Livejournal would no longer be offering its ‘Basic’ account option for new sign-ups. This account option was unpaid with no advertising. New accounts would default to ‘Plus’ accounts - still unpaid but including sidebar advertising common on other sites such as MySpace, with the option of ‘Paid’ accounts also remaining. Users who’d joined prior to March 13 would still be able to maintain their own ‘Basic’ accounts or downgrade their accounts to that option, but new users wouldn’t be able to.
Personally I found the “strike” to be somewhat silly, given that it was based on LiveJournal users apparently believing that they had some kind of right to be provided with an ad-free service at no charge, by a company that still has to maintain itself as a viable business. But one argument from the users withdrawing their comments did make me think a bit more widely - the idea that LiveJournal’s value was user content, and therefore the users *were* in essence providing labour and value.
I still don’t think there was a particularly legitimate reason for complaint (and I speak as a long term LiveJournal user). But I did wonder if it was a demonstration of what Web 2.0 is really about. I’ve felt that the term “Web 2.0″ has always been somewhat meaningless. It’s not a new technical version of the Internet, as the term might suggest at first look. It can’t be something as entirely subjective as a new style of web design, as has also been suggested (bold buttons, rounded corners, bright colours). Apart from being some kind of marketing watchword, “Web 2.0″ always seemed to be an undefined and not particularly accessible term. But the idea of a degree of personal ownership and added value from users was something that struck home.
I think Web 2.0 is really a readjustment to what the internet is supposed to be - a content-driven service and a massive social network. Massively wide ranging of course, and beyond a simple definition, but ultimately I think that’s what the web is becoming. The web is a social network not just of individuals, but of organisations, and the nodes of this network develop a reputation based on a wide variety of factors. That reputation develops into a hierarchy of popularity and influence, which in turn feeds back into that reputation.
Traditional business models haven’t worked so well on the internet, as proved by the first dot com crash. Instead Web 2.0 might be considered the evolution of the internet into a genuine society - still in its infancy and chaotic - but a society. With hindsight it might be considered obvious that that’s what would have happened, because of how increasingly easy it’s become to make your own contribution. And the Web 2.0 businesses are those that acknowledge this fact and instead of trying to shape a chaotic society try and go with the flow in an attempt to make themselves accessible, useable and popular.
And that’s why I think that even though the LiveJournal strike was frivolous, sites that exist as microcosms of the overall internet society - and that includes the likes of Facebook, MySpace etc have to acknowledge that their importance and any related business model is based on how successful they are as a social network.
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