What Matters

Let’s consider Flickr, del.icio.us, and Technorati as canonical “Web 2.0” companies. Let’s suppose that Flickr is popular because it’s a good way to organize and publish pictures, which is useful. And that del.icio.us is popular because it’s a good way to organize and publish links, which is useful. And that Technorati is popular because it’s a good way to find out what people are saying right now, which is useful. And let’s suppose that the facts that they all do tags and are frequently described in sentences that include the word “social”, just suppose those things are ephemeral, and the success is about doing useful things for individuals. How old-fashioned. Every day that goes by I believe more and more that the only important new thing is that the Net is read-write. Everything that matters follows from that.