Web 2.0 getting boring?

April 23, 2006

Don’t get me wrong - I love and use some of the tools from the Web 2.0 era every day. del.icio.us enables me to file away stuff I might need in future and find helpful tech resources (with better results than Google). I have bursts of using Flickr, Last.fm, co.mments. After trying a tonne of different online feed readers with “cutting edge features”, I went back to Bloglines. I’ve found Basecamp invaluable for keeping organised. I sometimes point people over to PXN8 or Pixoh if they don’t have an image editing program on their computer.

But reading TechCrunch, Mashable and so on has lately become less exciting for me. The Web 2.0 list is massive - and there are many people bringing out similar sites and services.

Sometimes I wonder if there’s a better system out there than the one I’m using for a particular task (e.g. social bookmarking) and I’ll go looking and try out a new system. Either I don’t give it enough time to realise the benefits, or I don’t need all those extra benefits or I’m too entrenched in the simplicity of the tool I currently use.

Being bombarded with new sites and services constantly (if you’re a subscriber to quite a few Web 2.0 sites) might actually be less beneficial. Sometimes there’s nothing like word of mouth from people who’ve become converts to the system, rather than people just reviewing them. The true test of the value of one of these sites is it becomes part of your life, your habits. We can all be wowed by features the first time we meet them, but are they actually beneficial?

The same goes for all the blog plugins - yes they may wow us but are they actually beneficial to the site’s visitors, or do they clutter things up and make things more complicated than necessary? We often wonder about features we would like added to our favourite sites. Have you ever wondered about features (not ads, heh) you’d like removed from those sites - things you find get in the way, things you never use.

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Comments

  1. I agree and wonder whether people are becoming a little desensitized to it all.

    For example in the RSS to email field, there have been at least three or four releases in the last few weeks. A blogger can only really use one of them at a time. Some of my readers are telling me that they are overwhelmed with choice to the point of ignoring all the options.

    It’ll be interesting to see which services last and which will languish in obscurity due to the clutter of it all.

    — Darren, April 23, 2006

  2. I totally agree too. Lately, when I visit Techcruch and other sites focused on Web 2.0, I just scroll through the stories and don’t read them.

    I think Web 2.0 is increasing becoming like the .com era. Lots of glitz, glamour, websites, ideas, but eventually many of these services and sites will close down.

    Some of the reasons the .com companies closed down was a) lack of a business model b) lack of profits.

    I think something similar will happen to Web 2.0 also. Too many of these companies are relying on advertising as a source of revenue while still having huge bandwidth costs. Due to the social aspect of these sites, most needed many users.

    It seems, there are just too many things these companies are relying on.

    — Sid, April 23, 2006

  3. I too have expressed this concern about what web 2.0 is really moving towards. While it is interesting no doubt, how useful and practical it really is, is something that remains to be answered. The innovation era is now over and it’s the ripper era that’s taken over.

    The stories at Techcrunch, etc seem to be pointing towards only reviews, etc, product releases and nothing new.

    BTW, You should try out Zooomr and BlinkList if you want something really new to explore and have fun! They are awesome and whip their Yahoo! Competitors.

    Speaking of Del.icio.us as a SE, you might be interested in this!

    — Chrono Cr@cker, April 23, 2006

  4. My shortlist includes del.icio.us, basecamp, gmail, google cal, technorati and pandora. All these great services have two things in common. They simply work. And they have all the features I need.

    I can think of many features I could add to these services, but none answers my simple question: how will it improve my life? That’s the question that makes or breaks a business.

    If you dig a bit deeper you’ll notice del.icio.us was started with not enough money to do feature creep, and now owned by Yahoo so they don’t have to. 37signals is a big believer in simplicity and Google executes that way. Techorati, also a believer in simplicity and started from a hack, and Pandora is all about their unique database.

    I hope we learned something from the .com boom. It’s wishful thinking to believe you can disrupt MySpace by solving the user’s “tagging problem”, and the reality that many will try. People don’t care for an incremental update and won’t move their entire social network over. And when you can’t tell foo.com and bar.com apart, you end up in a crazy race for buzz and features. That’s the fastest way to burn through your VC funds.

    That’s the reality we’re in. A lot of people who want to have a play in the field: get VC funding first, worry about value to users later. I’m just waiting for a few more killer services to make my Web 2.0 experience good enough. Starting with cheaper storage and low-end CRM. Everything else is just feature creep.

    And speaking of features I’d love to cut, Flickr has always been top on my list. I use it, but I don’t love it. Too much stuff going on, too hard to do the simplest tasks.

    — Assaf, April 23, 2006

  5. It is interesting Rachel that the services that you have held onto have direct business or personal relevance, things that ultimately save time. There are stacks of services that I initially play around with but what usually happens is my interest wanes, and I run out of time.

    Professionally, I am interested in making sure each application I have saves me time by making an otherwise difficult job easier or quicker.

    — Gareth, April 23, 2006

  6. Ain’t it the truth, Rachel. Lots of buzz and lots of hype, but is the product something that anyone cares about. Does it solve a problem or just add to the complexity? Does it innovate or just add to the noise?

    Others have commented about the monitization of these services, and that is always an ongoing issue with services that are relevant and simple. Reminds me of a saying … death by success, is death non-the-less. Will they make it to the next month and continue services?

    — Larry Hendrick, April 24, 2006

  7. [...] Great thoughts here: Web 2.0 Getting Boring [...]

    — FuzzyBlog » Blog Archive » 11 Minutes of Link Blogging, April 24, 2006

  8. Web 2.0 inded is getting boring.

    Until not so long ago, I was excited when surfing the web for new web 2.0 tools I could use:
    - a to-do list (RememberTheMilk),
    - a bookmark-sharing tool (Yoono),
    - an online storage space (eSnips),
    - an online word processor (Writely) and
    other nice stuff like del.icio.us , Last.fm or Tagyu.

    After a short trial period for 2-3 similar tools, I ended up using one single tool for each specific purpose.

    Until I realised there were other similar tools out there.

    Now, I just try to stick to my previous choices, in order to avoid going through the usual “discover-try-adopt-configure-use cycle” that goes with each new application.

    A.

    — Alex, April 25, 2006

  9. I agree. As far as word of mouth goes then: I’ve been using Ta-Da Lists from 37Signals for 6 months now, and practically have my entire personal and professional life recorded in a series of to-do lists. Not everyone keeps to-do lists or backlogs, but for people that do, this service provides a lot of value.

    — Andy Atkinson, April 26, 2006

  10. [...] Web 2.0 getting boring?  Web 2.0 should never have been *overly* exciting to anyone with a truly analytical head in the first place. It’s the natural progression.  However I’m sure we’ll see the same post about this length of time after web 3.0 (which wont be called that i’m sure)… all things fade.. [...]

    — CodeWord: Apokalyptik » Blog Archive » Blogging some links and comments, April 26, 2006

  11. I totally agree. I stopped reading TechCrunch daily about 3 months ago. Couldn’t get enthused about another app launch that had zero wow factor. I still stop by now and again to see what’s doing but don’t get much from it.

    — Anthony, April 26, 2006

  12. I agree with the sentiment expressed here. There are so many services out there and so many become available all the time you could spend your life signing up and adding widgets to your blog’s sidebar. It is tempting to sign up for the next great thing to emerge from the Web 2.0 machine but unless your goal is to collect these services, what is the point if it doesn’t address a real need you have.

    I was listening to a recent episode of the Inside the Net podcast where Leo and Amber interviewed web designer Dan Cederholm and near the end of the (fascinating) interview he commented that he finds himself moving away from bells and whistles to functionality.

    Functionality is more important, I think, than all the flashy bits. Remember the legions of flashy banner ads in the late 90s? Yuck!

    — Paul, April 30, 2006

  13. [...] Ù?کر کرده اید کاش این سرویس این قابلیت را حذÙ? Ù…ÛŒ کرد؟ : Web 2.0 getting boring  [...]

    — گزیر » روزی امروز, May 3, 2006

  14. [...] Web 2.0 getting boring? — cre8d design blog Sometimes I wonder if there’s a better system out there than the one I’m using for a particular task (e.g. social bookmarking) and I’ll go looking and try out a new system. Either I don’t give it enough time to realise the benefits, or I don’t n (tags: web2.0) [...]

    — Russell Limprecht » links for 2006-05-03, May 3, 2006

  15. I just can’t believe all these companies are getting funding when there are usually 3 other companies that basically do the same thing and they are just trying to do it “better”…those crazy VCs.

    — Justin, May 7, 2006

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