The Problem with Web 2.0

The Problem with Web 2.0

Written by craig coffman

Here is a confession: I hate visiting most web sites. There, I said it. I find them overwhelming and typically they just add more tension and nervousness to my day. Even the really good content sites. I have stopped looking at sites with 'good design' (as mentioned in another post). I am not really too interested in seeing the advertising. I simply feel like most sites cram their pages full of useless crap. I suppose this is the part where I shoot myself in the foot, as I hope to gain a readership to octoberland. Anyway, forward with my rant.

With the advent of Web 2.shudder, many wonderful things are happening. Namely, the web is finally becoming a haven for ideas and communication. Idea farming is happening and people are discovering that they are not so alone and that the world is not such a vast space. Granted, it is not usually as effective as face-to-face gatherings, but with the horribly misnamed Patriot Act it is harder to even get a group together without governmental observing and potential social terrorist charges. In this regard, the web does provide a valid meeting place, it would just be nice if it could better bridge the gap of social interaction and not just virtual.

The truly frustrating part of finding this information is all the visual noise created on the pages. Now, I am not against people selling ad space or trying to get some money via links. I myself use my Amazon account to try and get some pittance for my thoughts. I also plan on rolling out google ad sense. What I have tried to do, and what I wish more site would attempt, is an integration of selling into the concept of their site. There is no reason why ads need to stick out like ads, except that they are an after thought.

Along the same lines, I feel there is too much going on with most pages. Blue Flavor wrote a more detailed article which you should check out. With most sites, you are presented with numerous bells and whistles, often none of which a returning viewer takes advantage of. Sure, for the first-time visitor it seems like your site has so much to offer that the visitor really ought to stick around. However, once the initial blush has passed, they are really there for whatever reason initially brought them. Not because you have AJAX all over the joint and they can drag your feed links about.

The biggest addition to my web related tools arsenal is a good RSS reader. This has made it so I do not have to actually visit sites to read their content, which is what I would go there for anyway. I can aggregate all the feeds I am interested in and read them from one central location. While there are a number of readers out there, I personally use NewsFire and love it.

So there you have it. In my opinion, many sites are adding functionality (questionable), ads, and aggregated content. The end effect is more offerings on the site, but a dilution of what I feel should be the main reason to visit the site: finding out what the site creator thinks. Now, this critique does not apply to sites whose primary objective is to pull interesting articles together in one location for their readers. Even those sites, however, should make use of their page to push their site mission forward and really consider what they stuff into each page.

Perhaps that is truly what frustrates most about the current state of the web: too many people putting technologies in their pages simply because they found the code to do so. There should be much more thought into staying the course of the initial concept and seeing if the enhancement truly offers something to their visitor, or if they just put it in there becuase it is 'cool'. The end result should be more focused, less cluttered web sites which will yield a better visitor experience and much more pertinent content.