Web 2.0
Another important concept for the digital humanities is “Web 2.0”. Also known as the “Participatory Web” or “Social Web”, Web 2.0 is distinguished from the earlier Web by its embrace of user-generated content and culture of participation. Whereas the Web as originally conceived, “Web 1.0”, was characterized by a small number of content producers and the consumption of that content by users, Web 2.0 is the “Web as Platform”, where software applications are now run on the Web, and not only desktop or laptop computers (Silver). These Web applications allowed users to now become active participants in the evolution of the Web with the emergence of social media, social networks, Internet-enabled collaboration, and weblogs (blogs). The vast amount of user-generated data from all this user participation could be harnessed by various companies, who would buy or sell this information for marketing purposes, and hence Web 2.0 fosters the “exploitation of data” (Silver). Web 2.0 is therefore a driving force behind the emergence of “Big Data”, and is also one of the primary consumers of this “Big Data”.
Web 2.0 harnesses “collective intelligence” through the mechanisms of the original Web. A prime example is hyperlinking, which is foundational for the Web. Hyperlinks tend to grow organically as users add more content, to which other users link, and the associations these links generate become stronger and more numerous as more individuals use them. This huge, complex network of links reflects the collective activity of a vast number of Web users (o’Reilly, 2009).
Another participatory aspect of Web 2.0 is the emergence of “web logs”, or blogs. Blogs are qualitatively different from personal webpages, which have been in existence since the inception of the Web. One difference is RSS (RDF [Resource Description Framework] Site Summary, or, sometimes, Really Simple Syndication) technology, which enables users and web applications to access changes and updates to websites. Instead of a website simply linking to a page on another site, as was the case with the pre-Web 2.0 Web, users subscribe to the page, and receive notifications (through “RSS feeds”) when there is a change to the subscribed site. This feature has led some commentators to call Web 2.0 the “live web”. Particularly important to blog sites is the permalink, or permanent link.
A permalink is a URL that remains unchanged even when, over time, a link no longer points to its target, or a resource moves or otherwise becomes unavailable. These problems that may affect links over time are common, due to the extremely dynamic and ever-changing content of the Web, and are collectively known as link rot, a situation that permalinks address (o’Reilly, 2009).
Web 2.0 is also characterized by lightweight programming models, or simpler applications in comparison to the large and complex distributed applications and Web services that proliferated with the older Web. Instead of large, integrated (but reliable) software systems consisting of many different tightly interconnected (tightly-coupled) software components (a software stack), lightweight programming models allow systems to be loosely-coupled, or loosely connected. This simplicity may also lead to innovation. For example, Google Maps features a simple interface consisting of JavaScript and XML, known as an AJAX interface. AJAX is one of the technologies that became constitutive of Web 2.0.This lightweight interface was subsequently remixed into new services by other users (“hackers”) (o’Reilly, 2009).
Finally, lightweight applications lead to richer user experiences through the development of new applications. JavaScript is one of the main programming languages that facilitates interactivity on web pages, as scripts written in this language are supported through HTML tags. JavaScript also supports visualization and graphics software that enhance formerly static webpages (o’Reilly, 2009).
The innovations of Web 2.0 can be thought in other ways. According to Aden Evens of Dartmouth University, Web 2.0 is a natural consequence of digitality. Recall that digital technologies and all aspects of digital cultures, arts, and media, and, of course, the Web, are unified by their representations in discrete, binary code, the binary code consisting of 0s and 1s. “The digital” is digital because it is entirely based on this binary code, or because it manipulates objects made of the binary code (0s and 1s), using algorithms that are encoded only with the binary code of 0s and 1s (Evens, 2012).
This universal binary code corresponds closely to the overall goals of Web 2.0, as it ensures that all forms of expression are treated equally on a given webpage. No assumptions are made about the content of what is on those pages, as they are essentially neutral abstractions, represented by the abstractions of 0s and 1s. Consequently, “indifference to content liberates the Web to allow participation by anyone” (Evens, 2012).
Although this situation is not unusual from a technical or historical viewpoint, as any machines that people employ have no discretion over how they are used, just as writing instruments and paper are indifferent to the semantic content of what is written, digital tools are qualitatively different, in that syntax is manipulated algorithmically by exclusive reliance on the binary code. In this way, “syntax comes to subsume semantics” (Evens, 2012). Syntax therefore takes precedence over semantics, reflecting the important aspects Web 2.0 culture. Seen in this way, the success of Web pages is measured in the number of “hits”, visits, or links, to the webpage, and therefore content loses a lot of its relevance. The measure of webpages also results in a feedback mechanism whereby the number of views of a webpage is largely dependent on the number of views it already has received (Evens, 2012).
Although there are Internet “stars” and influencers, another defining feature of Web 2.0 is the content authors’ anonymity, as evidenced by ubiquitous aliases. However, this anonymous authorship claims to represent the “voice of the collective”, and not an individual author. Therefore, in Web 2.0, there is also a shift in how creativity is considered. On Web 2.0, the success of reviews, blogs, etc., depends on the generalizability of the claims, and whether they apply to a large number of readers (Evens, 2012).
Related to this reassessment of creativity is the idea of the “mashup”, a collage technique in which web content is recycled and combined into new content. The mashup relies on the idea that the original content from which the mashup is constructed is secondary to its new context within the mashup. Creators of mashups do not need to create original material, but simply rearrange various other media, such as images, videos, and sounds. However, the mashups and their presentation themselves often exhibit a high degree of creativity, and sometimes original material is incorporated. The authors also make important aesthetic decisions about the relationships of the objects they select for their mashups.
Importantly for the concept of Web 2.0, the recombination of existing materials, rather than the production of original material that characterize the mashup is consonant with the “broad trend in Web 2.0 to treat form rather than content as the predominant site of creative intervention”, consequently encouraging and perpetuating “a culture of quotation, remake, parody, and commentary” (Evens, 2012). This “culture of quotation” is facilitated by the underlying binary code in which software utilities for extracting all kinds of media from different web pages are developed, and in which a multitude of heterogenous elements are transparently and seamlessly combined into a new work (Evens, 2012). As Evens writes: “At the same time, the universality of the code typically ignores the distinctions that accompany these different modes of appropriative discourse, indifferently intermixing original materials and copied ones, allowing a range of remaking from exact recreation to cheap knock-off, and blurring the lines between parody, tribute, evocation, and theft” (Evens, 2012).