Web 1.0 - Vision; Web 2.0 - Contact

I wish I could remember the first time I ever experienced the Internet. Perhaps I had just finished an intense case of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? and finally dialed up to do research for a paper for my 7th grade literature class. I really don't remember what I used the Internet for before my junior year of high school. That is so weird to me.

I have vague memories of looking up spark notes for books that I (didn't) read for class, but not much else. I guess that is why there is a distinction between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. Before I came to college, I could really only use the Internet to get information. Today, I can contribute information. Anyone can read this blog right now, if they just know where to look. Anyone can see what music I am listening to right now if they click here. And now, when I get information, I don't just get a few paragraphs of black text on white background - I can get videos, audio, pictures, flash animation and contact. I can interact with people.

I know AIM provided this phenomenon many years ago, but I never really used it. Probably because I didn't want to wait for my mom to get off the phone or for my friend's mom to get off the phone. Today, everyone is in virtual contact with each other.

This is what Web 2.0 is to me. It is contact. I am in contact with my friend in Switzerland (which reminds me, I need to mail that letter - gotta have a little snail-mail mixed in for good measure). I can contact my parents when I need money. Then I can sign on my bank account and watch the balance magically rise (I wish). I can watch a video of a concert that I wish I had been at last week and then send that video to all my friends. It may not be direct, but it is immediate and it is contact.

When I look at this with a broader lens, it is even more amazing. The whole world is able to be in contact very immediately. Of course, there are parts of the world that don't have these luxuries and there are other parts of the world have them censored, but the capability is there. I can only imagine the ways that this contact is helping solve problems in the world by making them known and providing a wealth of ideas for ways to solve them.

Web 2.0 may just be semantics, but there is a VERY obvious difference in the way the Internet functions now than it did 10 years ago. The Internet is constantly evolving and changing. Web 3.0 will probably give me the capability to physically touch someone across the world. Well, probably not, but that would be far out.