Perplexed looking for a guide

Web 2.0 and the Participation Age

I got a chance to congratulation Jonathan on taking on his new CEO responsibilities this week and I don't think I had gotten the word "congratulations" out before he asked me where my blog was. Now that I think about, I believe he asked me that question when I interviewed for my job several months ago. I think it's a bad idea not to have a good answer for your boss when he asks a question three times, so...

As way of introduction, I work for Greg Papadopoulos, EVP and CTO of Sun Microsystems, and have the title of VP of Technology. So I'm helping Greg with some of the advanced technology projects and am having a ball with all the smart people around here.

I've always prefered to discuss problems and ideas with others rather than to sit in a corner and write about them. For me, the adreline rush of intellectual combat has been the fuel for my best ideas. Nothing get's me going more, than saying "that just can't be done." So blogging gives me an opportunity throw out a couple of wild ideas and watch them be attacked. What a great opportunity for me learn.

Here's the first....

Web 2.0 and the Participation Age

There has been a lot of discussion in the press and on the web about the new way to build web presences using AJAX, mashups, different scripting languages and the latest technobuzz-de-jour. The results have been some pretty cool web sites, but I claim we are just making it easier to create the sort of web sites we always wanted to create, but never had the time or energy to build. Google maps and the mashups based on it are great, but didn't we all know that that was what we wanted the first time we used Mapquest? Surely, there is more.

Jonathan and Scott have been talking about the Participation Age since before I joined Sun and I've missed lots of what they've said and thus don't really know what they're talking about. Nonetheless, I believe they are right. We are at the beginning of a new era of global participation. I believe we have the technology to create it. But is the technology and systems being created today helping to create a global participatory world, or is it hindering it?

Google and the wide availability of information on the web has minimized or eliminated the time we spend in libraries. When I was a student, long, long. ago you went to reading rooms not just for the books and journals that were available there but also to talk to people, see what others where reading, get help on problems etc. It was the place where students could participate in the creation of new science. Why is it so much more valuable to go to actually go to college than to sit at your computer and watch the course lectures, do the problems sets, and read the papers that come from those universities? It's because participation in the process of "doing science" not only teaches you facts, but also increases your sophistication about science and begins the development of your scientific "taste." You beome not just a more knowledge scientist, you become a more sophisticated scientist. (This probably holds in all fields, (e.g., the Socratic method in philosophy), but my experience is in science.)

Just as importantly, the participation of many people doing science is not additive, it is multiplicative. That hand-to-hand intellectual combat not only increases the energy each participant puts into doing science, it increase focus, strips away irrelevant issues, and sharpens our definitions and understandings of the problems. More so than we would do on our own.

Now what does that have to do with Web 2.0? I don;'t see Web 2.0 focused on creating a place for participation of individuals, nor do I see concern for creating places where different services can "participate" or "interact" in a multiplicative fashion. Think about all the Google maps based mashups. Are they multiplicative combinations of services or are they additive collections? I claim they are, at best, additive.

When you were younger did you ever meet with some of your friends to figure out how to put together a really great date for someone you were especially fond of? A couple of friends were really movie afficando's, a few others new all the music and comedy acts in town, some else new about the restaurants, others the romantic walks in the city. And you knew that your special-some-one liked sunsets, zydeco, raspberries and champagne. Didn't you come up with some great evenings that way? That's multiplicative participation.

Each of those bits of knowledge, restuarants, moves, geography, etc are available as web services of one form or another today. But how do you create the multiplicative, creative mashup that you and your friends, a plate of nachos and some beer could produce? Is that Web 2.0? is it even part of the agenda? I think it should be. I think that when are able to create places where services can participate, and where people can truly participate, we will get the muliplicative effect that will define the participation age.

There are not many companies that have the breadth of technology and the depth of talent to create the infrastructure to support the (multiplicative) participation age. Certainly I think Sun does. I wonder if a business focus on ad revenue leads to linear thinking and precludes the creation of non-linear, multiplicative places. What does need to be changed to support the Participation Age? There are certainly technology challenges, lots of them (dueling web sites??). But not just technology challenges.

What do you think?

Posted at 11:15PM Apr 27, 2006 by rezippel in Sun  |  Comments[1]