I came across details of a presentation in a recent Singapore Conference called “Website & Content Management Strategies”, organised by Asia Business Forum:
Case Study Presentation on Proven Content Management Strategies that can be used to effectively build and operate a web 2.0 portal Discover the special techniques that were used by NCS Portal City to build and operate an innovative Web 2.0 internet portal that is highly efficient and scalable, supporting collaborative content and mobile access. Learn about the opportunities for mashing commercial, lifestyle and government services together to deliver a seamless experience that constantly engages the customer
Lucian pointed me to this URL as the case study site: http://www.portalcity.com.sg/
Now, before all your web trendy people start ROFL-ing, please do note that site is still under construction - at least for public viewing. The point of highlighting this presentation is just to show how web 2.0 seems to have lost all its relevance and has become just another Jargon.
Is this Web 2.0
Looking at the “under construction” site, it is a glaring give away how not-web 2.0 it is.
NCS is not a company that is in the radar of companies that do Web 2.0 or talk about Web 2.0. IBM, not surprisingly, is. Which is why, it is a pleasant surprise to see NCS talk about Web2.0. Nevertheless, I think they have got the jargon/Web2.0 movement wrong.
Web 2.0 is about all these:
- Design
- Technology
- Business Model
Business Model
One of the good things about web 2.0 (which Nat Tokington highlighted at Nexus) is how fast and quick you can get it up and change it if need be. And how quickly you can get to your customers as well as get their feedback. Frankly, you wont see any web2.0 sites that are “under construction”. Any portal that claims to be web 2.0 are either in “beta” or “live” - spending not more than 6 months in “beta” stage (gmail is an exception! :) ).
Technology
Web 2.0 is not just ajax. Ajax is one of the technologies that spearheaded web 2.0 adoption - just like Ruby on Rails.
Web 2.0 is not about “mashing”. In the description above, the sentence “Learn about the opportunities for mashing commercial, lifestyle and government services together to deliver a seamless experience that constantly engages the customer” frankly makes no sense. As far as I know, Singapore government offers no XML feeds (except perhaps the Health Promotion Board? let alone APIs). So, the concept of “mashing” doesnt even exist. Web 2.0 is about providing services that enable people to come up with new ones. For e.g. Basecamp, Flickr, del.icio.us, twitter, etc offer APIs which result in pretty creative services like: FlickrFS, twittervision etc. These create the “buzz” around the web 2.0 technology while simultaneously creating a community for adoption.
Ajax is not just javascript. I see a lot of websites that scream “web 2.0” with just some fancy javascript effects. Ajax has always had XMLHttpRequest component that has been fundamental to the power of Ajax. Without that, there is technically, no Ajax.
Web 2.0 is not flash. But web 2.0 is definitely not about using flash to dish up the portal/apps. It has been done before, and they never picked up steam. Portal City, at least its “under construction” page, seems to be using flash with some links to government sites. First, they are not accessible, second, they are definitely not web 2.0.
Design
Web 2.0 is also about web standards. Web 2.0 portals should adopt web standards, accessibility, and usability techniques that work - including design of their portals. Complying with web standards is one of them. In the case of the Portal City, it is obvious that none of these apply.
Web 2.0 is about designs that speak of innovation. Now, there is nothing wrong with the NCS portal city page except it doesn’t speak anywhere of something new and progressive. It doesn’t have a vibrant, innovative feel and looks like any 90s site (except with a trendier flash presentation). For e.g. IBM is a portal that doesnt say it is “Web 2.0” - even though they do incorporate web 2.0 technology - neither does it want to be. But for any site that does want to be known as “web 2.0” - then it is time to freshen up the designs.
For Singapore examples of Web 2.0 portals we needn’t look any further than bookjetty or Shared Copy. Perhaps Herry is the best person to talk about developing a massive portal that uses web 2.0 constructively.
Links
- Functioning Form has list of articles on designing for web 2.0.
- Read/Write web has an article that lists the interpretations and definitions of the term Web 2.0
- Read/Write web also covers web 2.0 expo that happened recently. Functioning Form has a bulleted list of notes from the sessions at web 2.0 expo.
- Update:Just found out an awesome article on Web 2.0 Content Management Systems
Cross Posted at Nimbupani Blog.
Comments
Nice write-up about how leading local companies are having problems understanding what really Web 2.0 is.
But you left out one important aspect of Web 2.0, which is “Sharing and Collaboration”. A real web 2.0 site has ability for users to share their views and collaborate with each other where social networking pattern is involved.
Talking about standards and accessibility, not a single government-based website is having this feature. Flash can be used to achieve Web 2.0 features (like Flickr) but local firms’ approach to flash is much far away from being Web 2.0.
Another more, “tagging” is an important feature of Web 2.0 so the tag clouds are. But I don’t see it on any of NCS portal. Maybe it’s time for them to start learning on what really Web 2.0 is about.
Posted by: Ryan Lin | April 21, 2007 1:45 PM
Ryan, thanks for ur comments. I mentioned it in passing, but as you said, it IS one of the defining factors of any web 2.0 portal.
But, I think tag clouds are part of implementation and their presence or absence is not critical to classifying a site as web 2.0 (for e.g. twitter doesnt have a tag cloud, but it doesnt mean it is not web 2.0)
Posted by: divya | April 22, 2007 10:04 AM
Neat article! Regarding Ajax, perhaps it’s also right to say that technically Ajax is about server requests integrated to Javascript which, for one, leaves us with all the smooth loading up of content… away from browser refresh. And, if I’m not wrong, XMLHttpRequest alone doesn’t define an Ajax because there is ActiveX for IE too that does the job. =)
Before I forget, i came across http://web2.0validator.com/ … interestingly according to that, web2.0 rules are defined users. Or am I missing something?
Cheers!
Posted by: jonah | April 23, 2007 12:45 AM
Hi Jonah,
Of course ajax is nowhere without javascrpt - but ajax is not JUST javascript. Coz thats what I find so many people who use just some js effects and call it ajax.
The validator is too cool :) Not sure if I should take it seriously!
Posted by: divya | April 23, 2007 8:41 AM
Oops. sorry to wrongly emphasize in my previous post =). I was really commenting on this:
“Ajax has always had XMLHttpRequest component that has been fundamental to the power of Ajax. Without that, there is technically, no Ajax.”
If I’m not wrong, XMLHttpRequest isn’t really what makes an Ajax because others such as the ActiveXObject exist. Hence, technically without XMLHttpRequest, Ajax can still work… in IE that is… :)
Posted by: jonah | April 23, 2007 10:06 PM
Interesting write up, how could I miss such a post in your blog!
For the last paragraph, I probably can sleep smiling tonite. :)
Posted by: Herry | May 7, 2007 9:08 PM
Great article, Divya. Heard about the portal a while back and had exactly the same sentiments.
Yes, HPB provides podcast feeds and will be adding more feeds on health information very soon ;-)
There is also a feed at www.gov.sg.
Posted by: vantan | May 13, 2007 10:21 PM
Thanks Vanessa,
Aha. Thats nice :) Glad you are in the system to help it out!
Posted by: divya | May 13, 2007 11:02 PM