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IE7 represents the true beginning of Web 2.0

Chris Messina's post is one of the best things I've read in a long time:

"And that is where we are today — in the middle of an uprising from within — lead by folks like Kim Cameron, Ray Ozzie and others — on the opening lines of Web 2.0. What’s lead us here so far has only been the precursor in what will be a very long and very gradual change in our cultural and technological environment. But the launch of Internet Explorer 7 represents the true beginning of Web 2.0 because the vast majority of folks who have been living on borrowed time, using the spyware prone and popup-riddled previous version of IE, now have a capable browser… one that’s just as fast as what the rest of us are used to, with tabs and support for feed and CSS standards. And it’s delivered automatically, without a thought or a care necessary. So what comes next is where things get interesting."

Posted: Oct 19 2006, 01:14 PM by alexbarnett | with 4 comment(s)
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Comments

Hu Dou said:

I'm not seeing the evidence for IE7 to be the true beginning of Web 2.0, from Chris'e paragraph. Missed any points?

# October 19, 2006 4:34 PM

alexbarnett said:

Hu, I guess you'll have to read the whole post :-)

# October 19, 2006 4:58 PM

Chris Messina said:

The fact that Web 2.0 to date is still very much a "niche-thing" that only 100K people seem tuned in to (given TechCrunch's feed stats -- so maybe double that for good measure) means that IE7 will be a radical awakening for a lot of folks who have, to date, simple "put up with" the Blue E.

Whatever remnant issues IE still has are minor compared with the vast *overall* improvements in security, speed and tabbed browsing... *and* in that it will introduce the concept of "feeds" as a little orange button that you can click on get updates out of... something that wasn't nearly as discoverable before is now front and center and made very obvious.

We've been drinking the koolaid for some time -- now is when Web 2.0 will become not just a household idea -- but something that can't be solely directed by a few scrappy startups in Silicon Valley. It's something that will touch a whole lot more people, all at once.

# October 19, 2006 5:00 PM

Matt Simpson said:

If you are living in your own little world it's easy to convince yourself that something you suddenly became aware of is new and amazing and very special, and that you discovered it and no one else gets it.  And you feel proud and smug and happy, and then you wake up and realize that a whole lot of people already knew about it, and don't think it is that great, and really have moved on because they live a full rich life. In the beginning God made the heaven's and the earth, and then  there were modems, and the modems begat bulletin boards, and the bulletin boards begat Usenet, and Usenet begat flamers, and then there was html, and the text had colors and was bold and italicized and underline.  And man was amazed.  But soon man discovered online porn, and it was good.  And some men tried chat rooms, and online dating, and some found it interesting, but most people found it just like bulletin boards and newsgroups, mostly full of boring, whining, flamers.  So man tried blogs and RRS, and text messaging and man discovered that even though they called it Web 2.0, it was just still just  the whiners and flamers, so man turned off his computer and went out a got a life.  

# October 20, 2006 9:18 PM