The fall of Web 2.0

Historically speaking we have seen many great regimes rise and fall, the web though not a regime is a community that has risen and fallen. Today many say that we are in a time of great success in the web, called Web 2.0. While this is true, like all great regimes, the web will fall once again.

The Successes

The web is so successful today due to the increasing amount of open sourcing, the community, the social aspect that the web is giving everyone, sharing and the true freedom the web is allowing people to achieve.

We are seeing this in a wide variety of ways, on the web today, my site is a blog, in Web 2.0 I am allowed to publish my thoughts, and people may comment. Despite the fact that there are millions of blogs, my opinion is still published on the web.

Everyone is treated equal in the days of Web 2.0, everyone has a chance to create works, publish thoughts, and gain publicity through their sites.

These are great days, an idle democracy is what we are living in today on the web, but it will not last forever.

What is the problem

There are many ways that this perfect idle community can become corrupt, and we are even starting to see a few of them today.

Last week we saw indisputable evidence that Digg.com was primarily being run by a small group of Diggers who worked together to get their stories published to the front page. This makes that community feel less like a democracy and more like a communistic form of government. Even though Kevin Rose and the boys at Digg are working to keep it as democratic as possible the truth is that they will never be able to do that.

Selling out is a huge part of the fall of Web 2.0. The mentality of these publishers is to create great content and money will follow after that content. Unfortunately we are seeing more and more concerns with money now then we were ever seeing on the web in the early days of the “boom”. Leo Laporte’s podcasts are now flooded with ads, and though it is okay to expect to want to make money for their content it is a balancing act. Eventually the big companies catch up to those little independent producers.

Though everyone has the same chances to produce content I believe that if you are just starting today you have a lot further to go than you would have when Web 2.0 was starting. How is it that a site like TechCrunch, a blog that reports on the happenings of the web, can charge $10,000 for an ad, this to me is outrageous. How can they report on something so passionately and take money from people they are reporting on? TechCrunch is no different from hundreds of other blogs! When at the same time there are hundreds of blogs that report the same thing just barely trying to make a name for themselves.

Podcasters are in the same boat, podcasting started so independent. Anyone can have a podcast right? Yeah, but it will not be successful unless it is produced by Comedy Central, VH1 or HBO. Is this right?

So what is left

That pretty much leaves us with Myspace, which in my opinion has never been and will never be Web 2.0. It is flooded with ads, and terribly designed. Though it is what many of my age are pointing there mouse to everyday. Is Myspace a prime example of what we should expect all of Web 2.0 to become?

The Beginning of the end…

I do not want to get too dramatic and start speaking of the end times, but I really feel like all great regimes the web’s 2nd boom is about the burst. This time we have learned a few more things about how to be successful, but the boom is definitely declining rapidly.

How long will it be until it is over and we are back the the beginning?