Web 2.0 as the Era of Interfaces, Redux

In this Era of Interfaces, we have many criss-crossing themes. Among them:

• Recommendation Systems are an end goal of Web 2.0 applications. This is done by collaborative filtering over user-supplied data. Examples of interfaces include Del.icio.us Popular, Movielens Movie Recommendations, and iTunes Music Store Top Songs.
• More semantic Data Formats. Joe Reger’s new tool highlights what will be a growing trend: uploading XML Schema or RelaxNG files to your blog tool so that you can write posts in any genre you want. Movie reviews? 5 paragraph comps? News articles? Yes.
• Monetizing the Tail. Chris Anderson is documenting the economics of today, today.
• Web 2.0 is about Sharing. Sharing our data with others so that we can remix it with other, shared data. Remixing is the catalyst of innovation.
• Openness doesn’t mean free. Companies will provide APIs to their data that most people can use, which means that its open. Commercial interests are murky.
• Ajax Vs. Flash. This is a topic upon which I’m sure there will be much future discussion. Parts of Flash are going open source. Ajax is standards-based. Both have their proponents.

In addition, we have many new questions:

• How do you build an architecture of participation?
• Is collaborative filtering only possible on large data stores?
• What is the difference between Web 2.0 and the Semantic Web?
• Is Ajax a Web 2.0 technology? Does the distinction matter?
• Is there a future for a web-based Office suite?
• How long will the distinction between a search engine and a blog search engine last?
• Will RSS or Atom supercede XHTML as the display format of choice?
• Who controls content?
• What’s the difference between an application, a platform, an API, and an interface?
• How do you monetize…X?
• What are the limits of social software?
• What will Microsoft do?
• Who’s Buying Who?
• Is Web 2.0 a marketing ploy, or something real?

Lots of questions, huh? And I’m sure I’m missing a ton of them, these were the ones I thought of in the last 5 minutes. Got an answer to or a viewpoint on any of them? Drop me an email at bokardo at bokardo daught com or add a comment.

By the way, the posts I linked to in the top section are ones that I’ve written since my first post about the Era of Interfaces, which I did on August 1, 2005, less than 2 months ago! Is the Web changing fast, or what?