[ neoblogical ]

In his keynote, Christopher Klaus of ISS and www.kaneva.com fame considered what web3.0 will be.Klaus predicted, among other things, thousands and even millions of online worlds as smaller groups and even individuals gain the ability to create and host they’re own 3D virtual worlds. In a word, he sees in the web’s future a world of connected worlds. One might ask how this is any different than today. Isn’t the blogosphere already a series of online/virtual communities that are, in addition to being intraconnected, also interconnected (the long tail). How is Klaus’s vision different? As far as I could tell from his talk, the difference is the nature of the communities. Moving beyond text-based social connections, the new world of connected worlds will be increasingly virtual in the sense of creating virtual spaces that include go beyond text/video/audio mashup to 3D virtual spaces like kaneva and second life. Of course, the 3D worlds are still paradoxically represented on 2D monitors, but that’s another discussion for another time.Klaus’s vision of the future includes (He’s quoting an IBM press release here that is describing IBM’s Investment in Virtual Worlds) a “seamless, standards-based 3D Internet — the next platform for global commerce and day-to-day business operations.” The web3.0 picture he’s painting is very similar to the one promoted by the multiverse evangelists. (Also see Bigworld Technology and Uni-Verse. It would include more and more “v-business” models that would also interface with purely social and personal worlds, creating the so-called multiverse.I’m looking forward to reviewing my notes and his slides to see if I missed anything here. Or perhaps some readers will fill in the blanks by commenting for us.What is really fascinating about all of this for me, in addition to my pure geek response, is the ongoing opportunities for rhetorical inquiry as technology, the web, and social networks continue to evolve.

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Digital Culture, Faciality, Gaming, Identity, Online Life, socon07, Rhetoric, web2.0

I’m sitting in the opening session of socon07 at Kennesaw State University. The opening discussion seems to have a decided “what’s web2.0 good for?” flavor.

One participant slammed web2.0 because of all the “crap” that’s out there which, in his words, makes it hard to get the information we want because all the crap that gets in the way. His term for it was “web2.0 incontinence.” His comments were in response to a comment on web2.0 proliferation as “masturbatory.” I think what that person meant was that a lot of people are creating stuff just because it gratifies them without really benefitting the web community or being very useful.

Another person commented that one way to view web2.0 versus web1.0 is that in terms of 2-way versus 1-way. That might be as simple and good a definition as I’ve come across, as long as we are charitable and allow that 2-way covers one to many, many to one, and many to many.

But even though I like that simple definition, it also seems to me that that there is a 1-way sense of web2.0, where it doesn’t matter who reads or consumes what one posts on the web. In this sense, what matters is that the content creator is constructing and creating identity, and personal meaning, just in the act of creating the post. And I would argue that there is a sense in which posting to the web via blogs and other media is fundamentally different than writing in a paper journal. This is not to say that people don’t want readers, or that readers are not important, but once the readers get involved, the identity construction and meaning making are changed and must be talked about in a different sense. Although the posting or creation of the content may not be separate from the consumption of the content and the ensuing audience interaction, it must be at least logically separated for consideration and study separately from the interaction with others.

Technorati Tags: Digital Culture, Faciality, Identity, Online Life, Rhetoric, socon07, web2.0