Blog #4 Connecting Weinberber, Web 2.0, and Web Squared

Describe the connections you see between Weinberger's ideas thus far and the "What is Web 2.0" and "Web Squared" articles from weeks1&2. Make sure to make specific references to the texts (either by quoting or clearly summarizing key points)

“Control has already changed hands. The new rules of the information jungle are in effect, transforming the landscape in which we work, buy learn, vote, and play” (106). After reading chapter five in Weinberger’s book there is a clear connection between the points the author is making and those of Tim O’Reilly and John Battelle, in What is Web 2.0, and Web Squared: Web 2.0 Five Years On. Some examples I decided were important to bring up that was mentioned in these reading are the following:

Weinberger: “This goes far beyond simply organizing your information so you can find it again. It can change how business works” (96).  

Web 2.0: While a Barnesandnoble.com search is likely to lead with the company's own products, or sponsored results, Amazon always leads with "most popular", a real-time computation based not only on sales but other factors that Amazon insiders call the "flow" around products.

Web Squared: “Data analysis, visualization, and other techniques for seeing patterns in data are going to be an increasingly valuable skillset. Employers take notice.”

It is clear that the key point made in all three publications is that the web is changing the business world in dramatic forms. As more people begin to create, use and manipulate the data that is being stored, the business model is being forced to adapt to the market. Understanding that this is now how the web works can help me become more successful in the business world. 

Weinberger: “Standardization makes it easier to retrieve information: If you know the vocabulary you don’t have to guess…” (90). 

“Tagging grew out of a very personal need” (92).

“This goes far beyond simply organizing your information so you can find it again. It can change how business works” (96).  

I decided these quotes made the point very clear, information is both about how businesses need to change, but it is also about the people that use the web. Regardless of how each individual wants to tag an item, it is important to make sure that information is available at all times. Web 2.0 and Web Squared help build on this point with the following quotes: 

Web 2.0: leverage customer-self service and algorithmic data management to reach out to the entire web, to the edges and not just the center, to the long tail and not just the head.

Web Squared: “It’s also possible to give structure to what appears to be unstructured data by teaching an application how to recognize the connection between the two”

Again, the idea that data management is the key to success in the new realm of Web 2.0, is probably the overall driving point. However, it is interesting that all three publications choose to make the point that the information needs to managed by the masses and not just an individual or a company. From this standpoint, the web is personified and becomes a learning being. Each piece of data helps the web grow, helps link information, and simply connects everything on some level. 

Web 2.0: Hyperlinking is the foundation of the web. As users add new content, and new sites, it is bound in to the structure of the web by other users discovering the content and linking to it.

Weinberger: “The gap between how we access information and how the computer accesses it is at the heart of the revolution in knowledge” (99). 

I felt these last two quotes were crucial to put in my blog entry because they address important points. First, web 2.0 shows that how all information is bound together, which is in accordance to Weinberger’s stance that all information is linked in one way or another, depending on the user of the data. Second, the Weinberger quote, shows that the way we access the information is the key to understanding the change that is taking place in how we organize our knowledge. While Weinberger is referring to Wikipedia, how we can arrange the information in the way we need it to be assembled. I believe it raises a good point in which computers are more capable then humans in allowing for cross connections of large amounts of data. This allows us to simply lump information together, without worrying about the slices, since the computers will learn from a magnitude of input in how it thinks it should be sliced, and even if it guess wrong, computers allow us to add our own entry.