Web 2.0 – Who are the technology leaders?
When I think about Web 2.0 companies and the strategic planning required enabling their success, I can’t help but consider the history of the term Web 2.0. I also question, who today’s technology leaders are? How should I quantify a technology leader? Should I consider the number or quality of modules built? Or is it by the innovative contribution to the community? And the questions go on and on.
In a recent awards event held by SEOmoz.com, they used more than 41 categories to identify and cluster all the features available today. Still yet, none of the categories included topics like single sign-on, personal discovery and time management. Furthermore, they refused to name an overall event winner. One of the most interest points to note – only one category was devoted to development and contributing to the web 2.0 community.
I’m a big fan of Drupal and use it for this website. They are working hard to release 6.0 later this fall and all the contributing members are incredibly talented folks. They are also working on the technology roadmap for release 7. So what is in that roadmap? At this time, the only item I see is support for PHP 5. Compared to Joomla who has been struggling to get version 1.5 released out the door, and Plone with it’s steep learning curve, Drupal is the technology leader. However, none seem to have a clear strategic plan for the future of this technology.
When you wiki web 2.0, you get more useless information then most of us have time to read. The only noteworthy information on this page is the fact that Web 2.0 is trademarked (I learn something new everyday). And with the exception of the debates, Web 3.0 could turn out to be one of the most insignificant terms ever created. To be successful, Web 3.0 will need to be the final step in the transformation of monolithic web pages into discrete components that include the presentation, logic, and data.
Yahoo’s Developer’s Network makes an attempt to contribute. They offer services and APIs that simplifies the process of build applications and mashups the various data sources on the web. I have been a Yahoo user for years and My Yahoo is the default page within my browser. However, at the end of the day, Yahoo benefits more from the contributions with little to no pay back to the technology or community.
If you consider Web 2.0 as a big body of water, I see only one company making waves big either to affect others. Rather than focusing on be a technology leading, they have created an approach that will enable the success of others. Google’s Summer of Coding campaign has made them (in my opinion) the only technology leader – not for their vision but for their contribution. In its third year, the Summer of Coding program has produced more results in the advancement of the technology than any other. The idea is to partner with those who have great ideas and are driven to secede. By the end of next year, I expect to see Google’s contribution in every release of Web 2.0 software and leading to debate around Web 3.0.