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Remember Web 2.0?

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A short while ago nobody really knew what it mean’t to be “Web 2.0”. It started with a very broad definition. To put it into really basic terms, compared to the traditional web, or I guess “Web 1.0”, Web 2.0 utilized collaborative possibilities, easy information sharing, and more unified standards. I’ve noticed that within the past year or so however, one of the elements of Web 2.0 has sprung a life of its own. The principles of Web 2.0 have taken a back seat, unleashing something totally different.

If you think of “Web 2.0” you are more than likely to think about certain websites like Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, or Wikipedia. These, however might not have been exactly what the forefathers had in mind. I find that these sites primarily capitalize on one concept. That concept is to let the user create literally all of the content.

In recent months, this idea of user-driven content has surged beyond the internet into other areas of popular culture. Now there are television shows where the audience chooses the the characters to appear in the next season. There are games such as Spore or LittleBigPlanet in which the players are responsible for making most of the game content. There are even soft drinks which let people create the next flavor. Welcome to the “Viral Age”.

If you think of “Web 2.0” you are more than likely to think about certain websites like Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, or Wikipedia. These, however might not have been exactly what the forefathers had in mind.

If you look at this movement from a business perspective, things are radically different. Now instead of creating a whole infastructure of data and media from the ground up, all you have to do is create a good platform, present this platform to the public, and if they like it, just sit back and wait. Within an incredibly short time your platform will be populated with rich, free content. It is now plausible for a single person to create an entire social database practically overnight.

I believe this is why we are seeing it in so many areas beyond the internet. Why hire people to create the next flavor of Mountain Dew when we can have our customers do it? Why design tshirts or virtual goods if the community is more than happy to create them for free?

As a design and gadget geek I am exposed to this all the time, and for the time being I, like most everyone else I kind of enjoy it. I wouldn’t mind spending a few hours designing a cool level for LittleBigPlanet, or submitting information to Wikipedia. It’s all good now, but I can’t help but think about where it’s going.

I think at the current rate, this may just get a little too convenient for companies. It’s not hard imagine a user-driven car company for example if companies could build an easy enough platform. Or how about a user-created television network? All they’d have to do is cut a deal with YouTube or Vimeo. The possibilities are endless, and I think we’re just getting started.

Is this necessarily a good thing? Personally, I think it will be up to the viral community to decide. Once we realize that we just wrote an encyclopedia, created a virtual marketplace, or designed an entire game expansion for free, we may just start demanding a bit of reciprocation.