Web 2.0: Information overloading and typifying World 2.0
While experts say information is building up at a tremendous rate, others say there is need to discuss ways to utilize the Web as a platform to address social and global challenges.
At the recent Web 2.0 Summit, experts in user-generated and Web 2.0 projects expressed fears that at the rate new information is created, the Internet becomes flooded with data that pose the danger of confusing users.
James Powell, Thomson Reuter’s chief technology officer, said Moore’s Law is both a friend and an enemy, reported vnunet.com. “All forms of information are being added to the Internet at a tremendous rate. It’s the job of people in the industry to manage that fire hose of information,” he said.
The current financial crisis is an example of how this information upsurge can be dangerous, Powell said. He explained the credit crunch happened at a time when the greatest information was available to the industry, but said this data excess had covered up the warning signs.
Powell joked that a colleague had suggested that the purpose of Web 3.0 would be to clean up the vast amount of junk data left by Web 2.0 projects.
Other panelists agreed that one of the major problems of Web 2.0 projects is how to filter out junk information. However, they believe that the result will be worth it.
Moreover, in the same summit, almost all panel discussions touched on how to improve information, driving discussion into how to utilize the Web as a platform to address social and global challenges, reported Information Week. The theme of the summit this year sums up this perfectly: “Web Meets World.”
John Battelle, conference co-chair put it succinctly: “Web 2.0 Summit has gathered the Internet industry leaders to drive discussion about how to utilize the Web as a platform to address social and global challenges.”
In the panel discussion that featured John Heilemann, New York Magazine writer; Arianna Huffington, Huffington Post founder; Gavin Newsom, San Francisco Mayor; and Joe Trippi, political strategist, a consensus among them expressed that Barack Obama’s victory would not have been possible without Internet-powered fund-raising and social networking, both in the Democratic primary and in the presidential election.
The panelists indicated that the Internet-empowered fund-raising and social networking of Sen. Obama’s campaign may have helped advance the evolution of Web 2.0 as a concept.
“The McCain campaign didn’t have a clue,” said Huffington in a reference to technical rather than intellectual deficiencies. “The Internet has killed Karl Rove politics.”
