It’s a good strategy, really, but they’re both amazing similar in the way they do it. I don’t think Zeldman was fair to criticize O’Reilly.

You’re right to point out my criticism of web standards however. I overstated my case. In fact, I believe I did this in the same frustration that Zeldman wrote Web 3.0…it’s the overhyping and overfocus on something (standards/Web 2.0) that frustrate, not really the topic itself.

Sorry but I think I got to defend the Z Man. I don’t think that the point of web standards is just answering the question “Does it validate?”.

The point of standards are that fact that we can better communicate by creating technologies that are BASED of these standards as a means to communicate.

My stuff looking the same and working correctly on a PDA, any Browser, PSP, or whatever the heck else comes down the pipe is a VERY good thing.

Zeldman was a designer first and foremost. He raised a voice and awareness out of frustration and sought to make a better web. Putting him in a category where he is compared to a person, persons, or events where marketing and money come first and giving information comes second is totally wrong.

Great post and glad to see someone standing up for great ideas in building software.

I do wish the hypesters would stop, but in the end, they might still be doing more good than harm.

Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that I gave you full props for this post and your position in this article on the Ajax Developer’s Journal.

Best,

Dion

And the most successful sites out there, the Amazons, Googles, and eBays…well they aren’t standards-based at all. Does that mean their developers are unprofessional? Hardly. It means they know what to focus on, and it usually isn’t web standards.

But you’re right, my dig against web standards was tangential. It’s not that I think they’re bad, it’s just that I see a lot of similarities between O’Reilly/Web 2.0 and Zeldman/web standards. To each his own…and that’s why I felt Zeldman was being unfair in his dig against O’Reilly.

Sure, web standards make it easier for developers to create sites, but convincing developers to use them doesn’t make users love your site. Validation might very well be the biggest red herring in design today.

While this snippit was only tangential to the point of your entry, it especially rang true. I think what a lot of people miss when they talk about web standards, is that their use often it makes it more difficult to create a site in the short-term. You pointed out that using web standards doesn’t inherently make your site compelling.

Using web standards was never about humans. Web standards is about making human-readable content more machine readable. Good websites are about people.

Markets are conversations…The real goal should be to provide real value and have real interaction. If you provide value and communicate with your market not to them or at them, enable your market and the conversations open up your API’s the end results will speak for themselves.

The Internet is no longer a place of places; it is a river of micro content pushed and aggregated and a big huge mess of conversations.

And in the end, everything is search…the discrete event of that user’s desire line.

You better make sure you are part of that users search result, or you better be part of that user’s conversation.