Nice Take on Web 2.0 Expo from Information Week（"Information Week"对Web 2.0 Expo的出色报道）

It's among the most satisfying part of my job to seed new ideas, see them spread, take root, and eventually flower. In the process, they often morph into something unexpected, hopefully richer and better than originally imagined. But sometimes they take disappointing side-turns. So, for example, seeing Eric Schmidt equate web 2.0 to Ajax was disappointing. Especially since he went on to describe “Web 3.0” as small applications loosely connected and distributed virally, with data in the cloud, able to run on any device (my “software above the level of a single device”) – all things I'd originally described in my What is Web 2.0? paper. But it's great to see a media story get it right.

In Information Week's Web 2.0 Expo preview, Thomas Claburn got it just right:

The Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco 2008, which runs April 22 through April 25 comes at an inflection point in this rapidly growing arena. Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), one of the major players in the Web 2.0 space, stands on the brink of being acquired by Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT). Meanwhile, the U.S. economy is sluggish, which limits the capital available to Web 2.0 startups. Indeed, four years after the term “Web 2.0” entered the industry vernacular, many forward-looking innovators are focused on mobile services and Web 3.0, also called the Semantic Web.

Nevertheless, the conceptual underpinnings of Web 2.0, the Web as a platform, have proven to be sound. It might even be fair to say that Web 2.0 has won.Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN), Google (NSDQ: GOOG), Microsoft, and Yahoo are busy building upon the Web as a platform, along with thousands of startups and other large companies like Adobe (NSDQ: ADBE), IBM (NYSE: IBM), Oracle (NSDQ: ORCL), and Sun.

Yet there remains a need to explore Web 2.0 in a conference format because some of its major issues remain unresolved…

The article goes on to outline some of those big, unresolved issues covered in the conference: user control of data, privacy, security, the nature of “open” in an always-on and connected world, the importance of integrating new mobile and semantic web applications, business models beyond advertising, especially in a world in which Web 2.0 platforms are becoming serious business infrastructure. Good stuff. This should be the best Web 2.0 conference yet.

Precisely because we're getting through the giddy stage of “everything ajax, everything advertising,” and returning to an understanding that the internet as platform means far more than that, there is more innovation today than there was last year, even as some of the froth seems to abate. Web 2.0 is becoming real for mainstream business in a way that was unthinkable only a few years ago. As Claburn said, “Web 2.0 has won.” Everyone understands that this is the new game, not just something for consumer startups. Everyone in the computer industry, everyone in mainstream business, needs to learn the new rules, exploit the new opportunities, and help to invent the future.

This is a better time to be an internet entrepreneur than in the giddiest moments of 2006 and 2007. More real work is getting done, more real problems solved, than at any time since we first called out the resurgence of the Web in 2003/2004 with the name Web 2.0.

我的工作中最让我欣喜的部分之一就是播撒新想法的种子，看着它们传播开来，生根发芽，最终开花结果。在这样的过程中它们经常会有意想不到的变化，希望能比当初设想的更丰富更好。

但是有时候也会让人失望。就比如看到Eric Schmidt把Web 2.0和Ajax等同起来我就感到失望。尤其是他又进一步把Web 3.0描述成很多小的应用松散地连接在一起，病毒式传播，数据放在云里面，能够在任何设备上运行（参看我的”software above the level of a single device”）——所有这些都是我在最初的“什么是Web 2.0”文章中描述的。然而很高兴看到一篇媒体文章能正确理解之。

在“Infromation Week”的Web 2.0 前瞻中Thomas Claburn做到了准确无误：

4月22-25日的Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco 2008在这一快速发展领域出现拐点的时候如约而至。Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO)，Web 2.0代表公司之一面临被Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT)收购。同时美国经济疲软，这必然会限制Web 2.0创业公司的可用资本。实际上在Web 2.0成为这一行业共识四年之后，很多有远见的革新者把重点放在了移动设备和称为Web 3.0的语义Web方面。

然而，Web 2.0概念上的基础——Web作为平台——已经被证明是正确的。甚至可以说Web 2.0已经胜利了。Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN)、Google (NSDQ: GOOG)、Microsoft以及Yahoo都在忙于构建Web平台系统，同样的还有很多创业公司乃至像Adobe (NSDQ: ADBE)、IBM (NYSE: IBM)、Oracle (NSDQ: ORCL)和Sun这样的大公司。

但是仍然有必要通过会议的形式来探索Web 2.0，因为还有一些很重要的问题没有解决……

这篇文章接下来概述了一些将在Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco 2008会议上讨论的这种没有解决的大问题：用户控制数据，隐私，安全，一个永远在线连接的世界的开放属性，整合新的移动和语义Web应用的重要性，广告之外的其它商业模式，尤其是在这样一个Web 2.0平台正在变成重要的商业基础架构的世界里。好东西。这将会是到目前为止最出色的Web 2.0会议。

恰恰因为我们经历过“万事皆Ajax，一切只有广告”的浮躁阶段，正在回归并认识到Internet作为平台意味着更多，现在的革新要比去年更多，正如一些泡沫又要破灭了一样。Web 2.0正以几年前无法想象的方式成为真正的主流商业。就像Claburn所说：“Web 2.0已经胜利了。”每个人都知道这是新的比赛，不是什么商业市场炒作。计算机产业中的所有人以及主流商业中的所有人都需要去学习新的规则，探索新的机会，然后开创未来。

现在是比2006年和2007年浮躁时期更好的时机去做一个互联网企业家。和自我们将2003年2004年Web复苏称为Web 2.0以来的任何时期相比较，现在很多真正的工作正在做，很多真正的问题解决了。