How do you version the web?

Web 2.0 Joke

It’s true that all changes, or shifts in consciousness bring about fashion or trend, which for the masses to understand (or get a window into) have to, have a name.

But who versioned this internet as a movement? Who commissioned it? We never had music 2.0 or writing 2.0, of course we had musical periods “Rock and Roll”, “Classical”, and artistic ones “Cubism” etc… but those were terms created to pigeon-hole and describe parts of the movement, not the movement as a whole.

Versioning, is it just marketing candy? Shorthand for a shift in our understanding of the capabilities of the new connectedness? Or does it actually betray more about us as a species than we realise at first glance.

It’s interesting to see people already talking about web 3.0, as if there is a natural progression. But I was unaware of web 1.0 so how did we arrive at web 3.0 and where is web 2.4? or 1.9 for that matter. For a lot of people, it’s quite annoying to see terms bundled into the vernacular of business (and life) like “blue sky thinking” or “thinking out of the box” or now “Web 2.0″. To see perfectly reasonable concepts plastered over cracked walls which hold little understanding of the deeper concepts, makes those who do understand, baulk and twitch with annoyance and irritation.

But as with all great (or not so great) soundbytes/tags/sayings there is an element of truth behind them, or at least an element of revealing fiction.

“…an interpretation of a matter from a particular viewpoint..”

This was taken from a dictionary definition of the word ‘version’, which actually lets on more about the web versioning that is happening. Who’s viewpoint? who decides? who interprets? Some people used (and still use) the phrase “web 2.0″ without understanding who or what it represents. Sure, if quizzed many answers representative of change may  spring from the lips of the marketeers: “social networking”, “a network of networks” , “remix culture” etc… “How droll”, I hear “the geeks” cry. But if you were to really press, I mean really nail down what they mean when they say web x.x, they don’t actually single out a specific feature set in particular. It’s a clumped together phrase, embodying many other perfectly valid trends and some not so valid or fictitious maybe?

Who’s viewpoint then? It’s their/our viewpoint stupid! All of us internetters, together in a homogeneous lump of optimism and marketing drool. Well, at least all of us who subscribe to the understanding that “Web 2.0″ actually exists (which I personally don’t).

The scary version

The programmatical link is obvious, but are we already talking about generations, in an ordered sense, of something that is so young (in media terms), so packed full of potential and so chaotic? What happens when we get to Web 32.0? do we, like Rocky fall around the ring trying to reinvent old glory?

Many would argue that versioning itself is already outdated, practices such as scrum and agile development are opening doors to a less structured approach to creating things, where versions are in the eye of the beholder. Updates become releases and features become new products in themselves.

But what about the question: why? Why did we call it web 2.0? In a sense versioning gives you the impression that you are in control of its development, that there is a grand plan. Why do we seek overall control over this chaotic set of connected possibilities? The answer could be simple; give our fears a cutesy name, it gives us power over what is essentially a very scary and risky environment for the human. We are barely hairless apes (some less so than others) and sharing across tribes is not in our ‘human’ nature, unless we can see a benefit that overcomes our fear.

The handy illusion of control

The web is a spector, a ghost, a friendly helpful ghost, that turns the pages of the phonebook and opens up the encyclopedia to the correct page for us. But, aren’t we scared of ghosts?

As a massive fast growing, penetrative ether, has the power to stupefy, marvel and freak us out. The more it knows about us, the more we ‘could’ fear it, the more we would ‘need’ to censor and control it. I mean could you accept a friendly ghost in your house? You could if you gave it a friendly name maybe?

This point of fear and control, for me, is the point at which mankind can allow itself to break from tradition and relinquish fear as a driving principle for major change. But, versioning betrays our need to comfort ourselves by the use of cutesy terms and shiny phrases, i.e. naming the friendly ghost.

It serves only to stop us facing our fears head on. The fear of loss of privacy, betrayal of trust and most scary of all, the control of our thinking. The more we give to the web the more it can exploit us, now that is scary.

Is calling it “web 2.0″ about fear and control? or are we just naming our opportunity? or maybe both? I cannot be absolutely sure on either count, but that is my point in practice; we cannot be sure what chaotic creativity will spring from the technology as a whole and versioning in my view only limits the mental potential that we can offer each other, creating a tic or a loop for development to get stuck in. After all, as a medium, the web is so new that we are only just beginning to pluck the strings.

Brings me to the question, “how do you version the web?”. The answer, you don’t. No version, no time line, no plan. There is an effort under way to version the web of course, its happening in VC clinics, boardrooms, council chambers and politicians heads.

A mistake would be a ’softly softly’ approach to this new discipline, there is a desperate need to face the challenges it brings head on with bravery and insight, in order to see real growth, not just lip service and javascript. We non-evangelists, armed with the understanding of how powerful and subversive the web can be, have a responsibility to open the door and go into the closet, to face the reality of what we have built without trying to tame it. Before we lose it completely to the evangelists who give us a “web 3.0″.