Social media? Web 2.0?

Web 2.0: If you want to be cool, use this word, even without knowing what it means. If you want to be even cooler, talk about university 2.0, TV 2.0 or health 2.0. The opposite example are casting shows: Everybody talks about it, but nobody would admit that he watches it. With Web 2.0 it is often the other way round: Everybody talks about it, but only a few people actually know it or use it. So: What is Web 2.0, can it even be defined?


American writer Seth Porges has once published an article with the headline “Will Human Laziness Burst the Web 2.0 bubble” (http://www.crunchgear.com/2007/09/27/the-futurist-will-human-laziness-burst-the-web-20-bubble/). I think this question somehow explains Web 2.0 quite good. Web 2.0 depends on the activity and the creativity of everyone. It is all about participation and becoming part of this huge thing called “internet”. It is not any longer Web 1.0 with a few content-producers and lots of passive users, clicking on this page, surfing on another page, and on good days, type some words in google.


Trying to define Web 2.0 in a few words or even a few sentences is difficult, if not impossible. Even the word’s inventor Tim O’Reilly needed five pages to explain the term. The strongest arguments to explain the term, always seem to be the examples. O’Reilly says, web 1.0 is Britannica Online, web 2.0 is Wikipedia, web 1.0 is personal website, web 2.0 is blogging. And at least he explains: “Web 2.0 is an attitude, not a technology.”


But why should politicians even have this attitude? Is everything new automatically the best strategy? Let’s look at the numbers: Only 60 to 70 percent of young people find their way to the voting box. 96 % of young people regularly surf. And obviously, a 17-year-old-girl has not the biggest motivation to read 20 pages of boring party programs, when the alternative might be watching a Justin-Bieber-Youtube-Video and commenting it with three or four hearts. Studies show that young people are not uninterested in politics, many pupils or students even engage in social organizations. The trust in politicians is missing, but also the chance to participate in an uncomplicated way. So why don't politicians catch young people at exactly the place, where they stay the whole day? On the internet. 

By Ger_Watch