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As GigaOm reports, it’s more akin to the 800 lb gorilla in the room giving a wave and saying “Yeah, I’m here.” Only it turns out that it’s wearing a tutu and has blue hair.

Instead, Google gives us. Hmmm. Well, it’s kind of like IMVU. Or Kaneva. And certainly a lot like Vivaty, whose integration into Facebook makes it the current, um, 3D Facebook:

Why Be Lively? So what gives? So far, there’s nothing NEW here, nothing that wasn’t done on a 100 other platforms. So why do it at all?

I started uploading my photos into Picasa because it’s run by Google, just like Blogger is. And now I think I’m stuck. I certainly don’t want to move everything I’ve got in Picasa over to Flickr, and I don’t want to just start putting the new stuff on Flickr because the idea of scattering my photos across two hosting sites just bothers me.

There are too many people to follow, and it just got sort of overwhelming. I had a hard time following conversations between people, and before long I was spending huge chunks of my workday just trying to catch up on friends’ Tweets. On top of all that, I also had a hard time coming up with things to say in my own Tweets. Frankly, I can’t imagine why anyone would find the daily minutiae of my life to be worth reading, and the 140-character limit on each Tweet seemed to prevent discussion of anything more deep.

I never got into thesixtyone. I think it’s a neat idea, and I like how artists can theoretically become “discovered” if enough people bump them, and how the users who are good at picking popular artists are rewarded. But it just doesn’t work for me. I can’t listen to music at work because my brain tends to focus on the music instead of the work at hand.

What Is Web 2.0? Web 2.0 is the next evolution of the web that has a new usage paradigm as well as a new technology paradigm. The former is characterized by “architecture of participation” and the latter is characterized by “architecture of partition”. The “Consumer-centric” View Causes Confusion There is no doubt that the “web 2.0” phenomenon is ignited by the success of consumer websites like MySpace, YouTube and Flickr.  From these consumer website, analysts established “social networking” via the network effect as a key feature of web 2.0. Though it is possible that enterprise oriented social computing applications may emerge to address specific enterprise concerns, it is not clear how social networking can change enterprise IT on a more fundamental level. Analysts further characterized “Architecture of Participation” as another key element of web 2.0, as evident from YouTube and Flickr. Similarly it is unclear whether/how “architecture of participation” would impact enterprise IT mission. Enterprise IT’s mission is simple: to enable and facilitate the interaction and integration of IT systems and people. There is no doubt that web 2.0 applications like blogs and wikis based on “architecture of participation” can be useful to enterprises, but is there anything beyond blogs and wikis? The key technology behind most consumer web 2.0 websites, Ajax, is not new. The popular “mashup” concept sounds new but in reality is based on what has been built into the browser for many years. The “consumer-centric” perspective limits how we look at the technology aspect of web 2.0 and leads to the conclusion that web 2.0 involves no technology advancement. Further, “architecture of participation”, “social networking” and “harness the collective intelligence” are all usage patterns. They do not relate to technology. In fact, they can be supported well on web 1.0 technologies; reinforcing the common belief that web 2.0 has no technology foundation but rather a buzzword created by marketers.  The Differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 Tim O’Reilly observed the differences between web 1.0 and web 2.0 from a consumer perspective in his original essay: Web 1.0   Web 2.0 DoubleClick --> Google AdSense Ofoto --> Flickr Akamai --> BitTorrent mp3.com --> Napster Britannica Online --> Wikipedia personal websites --> blogging evite --> upcoming.org and EVDB domain name speculation --> search engine optimization page views --> cost per click screen scraping --> web services publishing --> participation content management systems --> wikis directories (taxonomy) --> tagging ("folksonomy") stickiness --> syndicationFrom Consumer Web 1.0 to Consumer Web 2.0    From an enterprise perspective, web 2.0 introduces a very different set of changes:  Web 1.0   Web 2.0 Browser --> Application Client Container HTML --> Declarative application markup HTTP(pull, unreliable) --> Push, pub/sub, reliable Application Server --> Mashup Server Appilcation Integration --> Enterprise Mashup/SOA Press release --> Corporate blogs Packaged software --> On demand/Saas Close source --> Open source Top down (dictatorship) --> Bottom up (democracy) Superbowl Ad/TV --> Google AdFrom Enterprise Web 1.0 to Enterprise Web 2.0 The Two Pillars: Consumer Web 2.0 and Enterprise Web 2.0 Web 2.0 has two pillars: consumer web 2.0 and enterprise web 2.0. These two do overlap, in particular, in the area of social computing. Consumer web 2.0 and enterprise web 2.0 have different characteristics, as shown below: Consumer Web 1.0   Enterprise Web 2.0 Architecture of Participation Architecture of Partition Social networking On Demand computing/SaaS Harness collective intelligence Enterprise social computing HTML Mashup Enterprise mashup Rich User Experience Rich User Experience The Web As Platform The Web As PlatformKey Characteristics of Consumer Web 2.0 and Enterprise Web 2.0 The technology paradigm shifts with web 2.0 brings tremendous, tangible and measurable ROI to corporate IT. Further, the new possibilities enabled by web 2.0 such as social computing are bringing corporate IT to new horizons.