Are we ready for Web 2.0?

Or, to be more direct, is Web 2.0 ready for prime time.

Sure there are some great companies and some great ideas, but are these sites that are in ‘beta’ or even ‘alpha’ really ready for our widespread use?

I began thinking on this months ago when I was exposed to an alpha service (not going to be any more direct than that out of respect for the CEO) that was not quite ready for prime time. We used the service for months, still do actually, but every few days we are having some sort of major issue with it. In fact, because it is a service that we depend upon, we have two of these things now, and I am beginning to use the one that is not so flashy (ie Web 1.0) because it’s reliable to a fault.

Of course, I’m not even going to talk about the other things I have had the pleasure to test over the last few months that were not only poorly executed, but integrated with other items that are now no longer useful for me.

I guess I need a Web 2.0 laptop for testing and a Web 1.0 laptop for actual work…

Dennis’ wife’s experience inspired me:

In theory, the population of users like my wife might be a prime target of the Web 2.0 delivered rich functionality for remotely served applications such as are sometimes referred to as “Web Office” or Office 2.0.

Technologies such as AJAX (and Flash, ActiveX, and Java, as well) help deliver near-desktop-quality functionality (some may argue with the adjective “near”) without requiring the permanent installation of massive amounts of (expensively-licensed) software on the client machine. I’m sure that many corporate I.T. folks view potential simplification of the client’s configuration as A Good Thing, right?

We have got to come up with a way to offer up something cool and new and exciting to our CORE users (ie the beta people) without releasing it to the masses. I know that was the original ‘beta’ appeal, but everything’s beta now so the market is clouded with a large amount of ‘beta’ sites that, pardon me, suck eggs.

We’ve no reason to muck up Web 2.0’s excitement and promise while it’s still in beta…