I read a very interesting article today, Web 3.0 by Jeffrey Zeldman. It’s cool. In fact, it’s good that there is balance to the force.
I’m a bandwagon kind of guy. I’ll jump on and get excited about the descent into the dragon’s maw … but I’m also open to the words of caution.
And these are not just words of caution. Well, really, they’re words of annoyance at fan-boys and how you can see where things are going because it’s happened before.
What’s good is that it’s not a raving article … in fact, it’s more lucid than most Web 2.0 fan writings. Jeffrey acknowledges that you can make a lot of money jumping on and developing the next big Ajax-y thing … but you can also fail. In the end, it’s almost as if the journey of the article has mellowed his feelings a little. Don’t be a fanboy who blindly grabs hold of a single idea that’s the hype of the day, but don’t stop developing in Web 2.0. Enjoy it.
At least, that seems to me to be how it finishes. I might be wrong. But it’s a good approach to take. There is always hype, and there are always nuggets of truth and excellence found buried in the hype.