Meh, you guys are talking across each other, and are mostly in agreement. You're just reacting to conversations in different spheres -- the messages about open data that you've heard are mostly only heard by those of us deep inside the industry. The traditional IT and tech industries don't associate those values with Web 2.0.

→ Posted by: Anil Dash at December 11, 2007 2:25 AM

Anil's right. I'm talking about the common conception of Web 2.0, not the "official" definition contained in the arcane scriptures of the priesthood.

→ Posted by: Nick Carr at December 11, 2007 3:13 AM

Shorter Shorter Nick Carr: "Why is it so hard to see, (discounting my blindfold)?"

'Arcane scriptures', indeed: such trolling is so Usenet 1.0. You know what might help with any common misconceptions? Not perpetuating them in order to conquer strawmen.

→ Posted by: Nick Sweeney at December 11, 2007 5:10 AM

Well, according to our latest Nobel prize for literature winner, blogging is "inane" anyway, so your conversation is rendered pointless.

To be honest I expected a bit more of Doris Lessing

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2224159,00.html

→ Posted by: Rob at December 11, 2007 9:10 AM

Sweeney, The point of my post was to counter the common misconceptions and to urge entrepreneurs to take a broader view of the net's possibilities. Nick

→ Posted by: Nick Carr at December 11, 2007 1:39 PM

Well, that's a bit disingenuous isn't it, given that you clearly didn't READ the text that described the concept in the first place before rubbishing it. A more reasonable approach, I'm sure you would agree, would have been to say something along the lines of, "Many people seem to have a misconception about 'Web 2.0', which they would have resolved by reading one of the first texts on the subject. Perhaps Tim O'Reilly's choice to focus on the Web in the title was in error, but..." More importantly, with a lot of people (myself included) talking about the Web of Data, there's really no reason to assume that the Web in the title was merely the browser-based web, rather than the way the exact same structures are being used to transmit and organise data.

More importantly, that wouldn't excuse you not really noticing that most of the work that these people have done has been focused in exactly the areas you're saying people should have been examining.

It seems to me that you use the word 'priesthood' as a mocking way of describing the group of people who are defining this area and whom you haven't read or engaged with. It's a cover for your own lack of interest in digging deeper, and I think a cheap rhetorical ploy. That your readers may be similarly disconnected is a problem for all of us, I'm sure, but the way you're going to serve them best is by helping them engage, not by mocking the people who are defining the future.

→ Posted by: Tom Coates at December 12, 2007 4:55 PM

It seems to me that you've been rumbled on this pretentious and meaningless "Web 2" rhetoric.

"Defining the future"?

Jeez, talk about cyber megalomaniac arrogance.

→ Posted by: James at December 19, 2007 6:51 PM