All comments posted on this blog do not reflect the opinions of any organization that I am affiliated with. These are my personal perspectives only.

Friday, June 8, 2007

RESEARCHERS DISCOVER WEB 4.0

On a little lighter note, here is a little fun...

WEB 4.0 DISCOVERED
BREAKING NEWS

SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AF) -- Scientists of the Eelxer Institute in Silicon Valley have just uncovered a major advancement in web technology being referred to as WEB 4.0: The Virtual Virtual Web.


Specific details of web 4.0 are still unfolding but preliminary evidence indicates that web 4.0 is a significant leap forward in rich multi-sensory social interaction enabled through recent advances in virtual virtual reality.


Joe King, a researcher at the Eelxer institute who leads the scientific research said web 4.0 announces the beginning of the read/write/smell/taste/touch web of which there will be unlimited possibilities.


"Virtual virtual reality technology has progressed to a point where we are now able to imitate virtual reality through advances in physical face-to-face interaction. This face-to-face interaction, also referred to as 'reality', will enable us to experience richer, and deeper interactions with other people. The potential of which is still unclear"


An early adopter of "reality" is referred to as "going to the bar" or "bar hopping". Bar hopping allows people to physically co-locate at central locations and engage in virtual virtual drinks, and virtual virtual conversations. Although the concept seems quite foreign to most North Americans, who primarily rely on Facebook for their interactions, web 4.0 has started to gain momentum among the younger generation.


Skeptics refer to "reality" as a "passing fad", one that is too complicated for the general public to understand and adopt. According to Brock Lee, an avid user of social forums such as Facebook,

"Why would I get up and out of my house and actually meet-up with friends when I could simply sit in front of my PC and poke them? If I were to poke them in this reality world, they probably would get upset."

Sometimes we just need a little reminder that technology isn't everything!


© 2007 The Associated Fress. All rights reserved. This material may be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

3 comments:

Rex Lee said...

Sometimes we just need a little reminder that it's not just technology...

Matthew Zadow said...

Rex, this is very funny... you know, I commented to Eugene Roman back in April about the whole purpose of social networking technology, and how its purpose is "social networking" and not "technology":

...the essential power of our ongoing transformation into an IP-based company is that it extends to large and geographically distributed groups of people the kind of social “magic” that happens naturally in small face to face groups.

To paraphrase my comments, “collaboration is the active ingredient that creates digital alchemy”... to extend the metaphor one could say “philosophers stone” instead of “active ingredient”…

I find a lot of people focus on executing the strategy of transformation to IP, but miss the point that in the end, for our users, such work has ultimately a social, not a techical purpose.

Rex Lee said...

Thanks for the note Matthew. It is indeed about People and not Technology.