Image via CrunchBaseI have been aware of 4Chan although I have never visited the site. But this guy is convincing. I think I do want a 4Chan log in option like I have Facebook and Twitter log ins, as pervasive. I like the idea of multiple log in names that you chose for yourself.
As I was watching Jack Dorsey call cash registers "ugly" the other day at TechCrunch Disrupt, I found myself thinking, is Square Jack Dorsey's second act? Is he getting to do with Square what he was not allowed to do with Twitter?
I think so. The Founder CEO is a rare animal, but it is my favorite animal. All the trailblazing companies I know have had Founder CEOs. Twitter stands in stark contrast to Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg has relentlessly pivoted, he has relentlessly added features. What used to be The Wall became The Stream. We now have a like button to press. There are Facebook Comments at blogs. Twitter, by comparison, stagnated. There has only been scaling and a little bit of monetization.
Image via CrunchBaseThe terms social media and new media are makeshift. Watching TV with friends can be a perfectly social activity, but we are not thinking TV when we say social media. Radio was new at one point. But we don't think radio as new media. Social media, new media have been birthed by the internet, more specifically Web 2.0. But we don't think of email, the web's central application still, as social media, new media.
Facebook, Twitter and blogs are the most often thought of tools of social media. How are these tools so different from television, radio, books, movies, music, even a website?
No matter how many people are talking to you, you should still be able to listen, and listen well. I believe that is the next frontier of social media. Social media has so far presented itself as the antithesis of broadcast media like television and radio. They spoke to us and we listened. But so far social media has been primarily a miniature version of that same broadcast media. Some listening is possible, sure, and is done. But social media still has been primarily a broadcast mechanism.
Twitter meaningfully spitting out all the tweets it takes in would be a sign we are getting good also at listening.
The frontier after that would be to get closer and closer to realizing everyone on the planet is connected to everyone else. We will use the web to explore our interest graphs in ways that we will find ourselves interacting with people who are out there, but before new technology we just did not have the option to get to know them well. That is partly about getting everyone to come online, that is partly about getting people more bandwidth. But it goes beyond that. In 2000 we did not see Twitter coming. Today it is fair to say we don't exactly see the tools of 2015. There are Twitter size surprises ahead of us. Image via CrunchBase
New forms of collaboration will become possible. Richer social relationships and interactions will become possible. More meaningful dialogues will become possible. Ambitious social goals will be achieved.
Dean 2004 - and I was part of it - was a little too early. But Obama 2008 finally had the grassroots lay a claim to the presidency. So the electioneering part is done. But we are not yet in the era of grassroots governance. 2009 did not feel like 2008. 2010 has not felt like 2008. It is because we are not there yet. Data.gov is a big step in the right direction, but we are not there yet. Not enough data has been released. And not enough data is being served in compelling ways for the grassroots to munch upon. A thing to do is to make it possible for the people at the grassroots to follow the debates and discussions and votes on Capitol Hill in meaningful ways. Who is saying what? What are their track records? What are the implications of what they are saying and how they intend to vote? What would be the Web 2.0 version of the Congressional Budget Office?
It is said we live in an era when people will have not a few different jobs over a lifetime but a few different careers. The one job for life thing went out the window a long time ago. It has been so very true for me.
The immigration humiliation of the past two plus years has been a major blow to self esteem. You show up for enough tech events in town and you leave the impression you are one of those people whose startup never took off. The truth is I am about a year from my green card, and the startup thing will have to wait until then.
What to do has been no minor struggle.
A lot of people who know me think of me as a politician, and I have done some political work, sure, some pretty cutting edge stuff, I would like to believe. But I am who I am. I am a Third World guy. I don't think I have ever seriously contemplated running for office locally. I can get excited about microfinance, but affordable housing? I am not so sure. I am glad plenty get excited about that, and the people are well served, but I am not in that rat race personally.
It is not just a demand issue. It is not just about what the world wants. It is also a supply issue. In politics what excites me is the executive. The US presidency I find fascinating. But I could not say the same about the legislative branch. And that tells me I am cut for tech entrepreneurship. That fits into my personality type. I need much action.
Minus the web I am a fragmented person. I was born in India, grew up in Nepal, now live in America. America is not one country to me. There is the rest of America. And there is New York City. I try to think of New York City as a country on its own. I make a point not to step outside the city boundaries. And I am someone who has been to all parts of America. No one who ran for president of this country has seen as much of America as I have.
Larry Ellison takes his sailing pretty seriously. I take my politics pretty seriously. But I don't see myself in politics. I don't even see me doing the Bloomberg thing. I am perhaps too global. It is a mindset, it is a world view. In my case, it is just who I am.
I set out to raise 100K for my startup in 2008, and I did. I put the bank account in my business partner's name. ("Are you sure you want to trust me with all this money!") The Democratic primary over, I was going to focus on the startup like a laser beam. The McCain thing was not going to be much of a contest. I did not think so.
Back then it was about getting into the ISP space that I had started to call Web 3.0. How do you bring another five billion people online? By now I am much more interested in the mobile web. Looks like the mobile web has already engulfed much of humanity. Well, it is Mini Me for much of the world, but it is a start. Being able to do mobile phone banking is nothing less than revolutionary.
I have yet to buy my first smartphone. I have been pretty much broke during these two plus years of immigration humiliation. But I also look down upon that screen size. The goal has to be big screen wireless broadband for everybody. Third World people are not Mini Me people. And I spend so much time online everyday already that when I am offline I like being offline, untethered. You have to smell the roses, or in the case of New York City, the foul smell of the subway. I think that is also important.
When I do my startup in a year, right now it looks like it is going to be something in the mobile web space. I have a few ideas. I am going to learn some coding in the mean time, enough to lead teams.
In the mean time I will do pro blogging, social media consulting, I have coders who will work for you, I give them their pay and take my cut: let me know if you need some cheap, remote coding done. I am open to getting a job. I am about to put my profile up on a modeling site. I believe I could handle that on the side. I did get a call. I need to call back. I am open to more.
I could use some help with the pro blogging. Every startup worth its salt has a social media presence. This is like outsourcing some of the blogging. You let me do a post or two or three. On your part that would require you giving me an hour or two of your time, in person or on the phone, in person preferred, when you tell me your full story, your full story, and your startup's full story. And by full, I mean full. And you let me talk to the key people on your team. And you email me all the pictures you want to go with the posts. And I would spend hours on the posts. And after the posts come out, you should want to link to them from your site. If you get the full story out, that helps with your hard core users, they feel more included, and become more loyal, and it helps with the press. If they can do all the background research on you with little effort, they are more likely to do stories on you. And more stories the better. Every article written about you is so much free advertising. And it helps with your future investors. I don't have space issues like the mainstream media. I can give as much space to you as needed.
The attraction of the mobile web is that you are working with a pool of five billion people. There has to be an app for that. It is about becoming whole as a person. To me it is. I have a mobile web app in mind that grows to also end up with a big screen web presence. But one year is a long time in tech entrepreneurship. Maybe I will go back to my original idea. Maybe I will set up shop in Queens. But software speaks more to my butterfly effect instincts.
I find this "coverage" ironic because I am deep into Web 2.0, a big believer, and NYT is one of my favorite news destinations online. NYT need not, should not die. It just needs to go completely online. Put all your archives online. Cover news to be published immediately. 100% ad model. Encourage others to link to your articles. Dominate the search engine results. Go multi-media. Get the top, lone, super niche bloggers to contribute on a per post, for pay basis. Even more important, have thriving comments sections. Readers don't want to just read.
Stop calling them readers. That is so yesterday. Call them consumers cum contributors. Become a megasite that is megainteractive. Appoint a CTO. Don't die. Reinvent yourself. News is more important than ever in this new age. But the old medium has become indefensible. Face the reality and live, thrive. Go for the global, real time audience. Visitors, they are visitors. They are not readers. The paper version has to die for the brand to live and thrive. Life for the NYT will be so much simpler if there was no paper involved whatsoever. Do all business online. 100% online, 100% global, 100% real time.
The difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 is that Web 2.0 is social. (Each Snowflake Is Unique) To me the inherent beauty of the web is that it has, it will make big political, social, economic changes possible, big as in huge, humongous huge.
In 1995 Bill Gates talked of "business at the speed of thought," and that was before he "got" the internet. I am talking about political, social and economic change at the speed of imagination. (Barackface: Political Sci-Fi) Could we take democracy to every country on the planet? The non-violent way? Could we end racism? Sexism? Could we end human trafficking? Could we end slavery, bondage? Yes, they still exist. Could we eradicate poverty? Could we make education, health, and credit universally accessible? Could we pour a trillion dollars into microfinance? Could we have a democratic world government? Could we end female infanticide? Could we end female circumcision?
Google Wave could make possible political, social, economic tsunamis. Big things might become possible.
Each snowflake is unique. Each human being is unique. Each sentence that comes out of human mouths is unique. The web is the best technology we have come up with yet to take snapshots of a rather uniquely unfolding humanity.
In my blog post Hunger, Vision, Money I have tried to argue that bringing the rest of the billions online makes tremendous business sense.
In Web 5.0 Is Da Bomb and related posts I have tried to argue the biggest thing that happened in our shift from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 is that the web got populated. And so Web 3.0 can not be about technology. Web 3.0 has to be about the human element of the web.
The web is poorer for every human being not yet online. And so it is not the semantic web that is Web 3.0. (A Web 3.0 Manifesto)
I have been active with this mailing list only since the last MeetUp (NY Tech MeetUp: 02/03/09), been barely a week, and so far I have not got into the thick of it much, but right now I logged in to look at today's daily digest, and boom, there it was splattered all over the place. Before proceeding to read all the emails, I took this screen shot. Seven of the 20 emails are about my Web 5.0 post.
In his last email Mike wondered if there will be a Web 6.0, and a Web 7.0.
Web 5.0 And The Speed Of Light
In physics it is said nothing in the universe moves faster than the speed of light. In my classification, Web 5.0 is the same way. There is no Web 5.1, there is no Web 6.0, there is no Web 7.0. Web 5.0 is the ultimate.
I think earlier classification systems have made the fundamental error of thinking of the web only as the software behind the websites. In my classification system the web is the software, the hardware, the connectivity, and, most important, the people, the netizens. How can you miss the people after Web 2.0?
Read
Now let me go read and answer other queries and curiosities.
Nicolas VDB: Stay tuned, web 36.0 coming soon on Paramendra's blog
James Gillmore: I think the message to be taken away from Paramendra's posts should be a recognition of the enthusiasm, passion and idealism for a subject matter we obviously all love or we wouldn't be here. It doesn't need to illicit jaded "web 2.+ is so cliche" responses. However, Paramendra, I think what you're saying is far from reality and how things will actually pan out--and it's a little to poetic for a lot of us. It's also not very specific. I'd love to see a post from you about simply what technical advancements on and offline you forecast in 2009 and 2010, regardless of what point oh they fall into. What are your predictions for the next 2 years?
Andrew: wahahahaha *snort* *sniffle* ...... ahhhh PB, thanks for the Monday chuckles, Chuckles.
Matthew Zito: Glad we cleared that up. Unfortunately for you, I've already invented the New Web 1.0, which will supplant all versions of Web x.x
Andrew to Matthew Zito: Sorry, but we only recognize Web 1.0 as defined in ISO/IEC 3282-1:1993.
My Reaction
I guess it has not been the controversy I first thought it might be. There is irrational, illogical derision and dismissal. There is mild amusement, but no real technical critique. I should learn to ignore most of the fluff. Perhaps this is not the right venue to be expecting a discussion.
Creating Ground
There are people who don't buy into the Web 2.0 term itself. At one point Google CEO Eric Schmidt was one of them. He dismissed Web 2.0 as a marketing term. I would have to fundamentally disagree. Web 2.0 is very real to me. Web 2.0 was when the web got populated, it became alive, it became dynamic.
And then there are those who think of Web 1.0 as read, Web 2.0 as read-write, and Web 3.0 as read-write-execute. That is a fairly elegant classification. It is not right or wrong, I feel it is misguided. It only makes sense if you think of the web only as the software that powers websites, which I don't.
I look at the software, the hardware, the connectivity, and the netizens, like I said above. There are four components. What others might propose to be Web 3.0, I have proposed to be Web 2.1.
You could disagree with my basic premise and argue but the web is only about software. Or you could take my holistic approach and come up with a different classification system. But I have not seen any so far, and this mailing list perhaps is not the place to look.
Web 4.0 isn't on wikipedia yet. Nice write up on 3.0, which isn't here yet. Start the wikipedia article, blog about it or invent it. There really isn't much value unless you do the latter.
Attacking me for my primary physical location is about as insightful and effective as your laughable, pitiable effort at self-promotion by discussing a topic that is not only cliche, but even so, seems also beyond your ability to offer value in discussing.
I don't subscribe to people posting meaningless self-promotional non-insightful blogspam without bringing some sort of value -- did that really need to be spelled out for you? Web n.0 has been beaten to a bloody pulp, and your piece offers nothing new in that arena. Really, it's not even that good at covering the same ground covered many times before.
Message 5: Paramendra Bhagat
You mean other than that 90% of the traffic at this discussion forum is less conceptually meaningless?
Instead getting into name calling, why don't you try a different tack? You could say you don't subscribe to the Web 2.0 terminology, or that you do, but you don't see why anyone would build on it, as in thereis no room for Web 3.0 and beyond concepts, or that you see room for all that but you think my classification is off the mark, and you could try and say why.
Then we are talking. Right now we are not.
Message 4: Andy Badera
There's nothing new or original or insightful here, so why are you posting it?
Message 3: Paramendra Bhagat
Andy. My Web 1.0, Web 2.0, Web 3.0, Web 4.0, Web 5.0 classification sounds vague, nebulous, amorphous, pie in the sky, abstract, cloudy to you. To me it feels rather concrete. Let me ask you something. There are people who think even the term Web 2.0 is pie in the sky. There is a web, and that is all. There is no 2.0. How do you feel about that? Is Web 2.0 a term you use? Or what? And if Web 2.0 is real to you, what is your disagreement with Web 5.0, for example.
I feel like there is a comprehensivity to my classification that makes it rather poetic.
Message 2: Andy Badera
Another nebulous Web n.0 piece, fantastic. Was there something of particular value here you were trying to share with us, or is this just a link to another run-of-the-mill pie-in-the-sky pointless Web n.0 enumeration piece?
"One million seconds comes out to be about 11½ days. A billion seconds is 32 years. And a trillion seconds is 32,000 years. I like to say that I have a pretty good idea what I'll be doing a million seconds from now, no idea what I'll be doing a billion seconds from now, and an excellent idea of what I'll be doing a trillion seconds from now."
That was/is the static webpage. They are very much around. Offline you had posters and pamphlets. Online you had webpages. Same thing, different medium. (Google Books: Primitive)
This is the most amorphous part right now in this system of classification, but I am going to call it Next Generation Software. I have no idea as to its shape, form or function. Massive collaboration software, massive input software. Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 software, at the end of the day, treated you like individuals. Web 4.0 will be able to handle masses of people, both in creation and consumption.
Web 5.0
Web 5.0 is face time. This is where the circle becomes full. Because, face it, the internet is, at the end of the day, a communication tool. We try so hard to get people communicating, talking. We try to say, it is okay you are not in each other's immediate presence, you can still talk. That begs the question. What when people are in immediate presence? Starbucks repackaged coffee. You could accuse me of repackaging hello. But my point is Web 5.0 is supreme. Web 1.0, Web 2.0, Web 3.0, Web 4.0, they are all supposed to lead to Web 5.0. And Web 5.0 is not about technology at all. It is about basic human interaction. It is about meeting in person. Web 5.0 is the ultimate interactive experience. But the Web 5.0 that will sit on top of Web 1.0, Web 2.0, Web 3.0 and Web 4.0 will be qualitatively different, very much so. Web 5.0 is not an argument against Web 1.0, Web 2.0, Web 3.0 and Web 4.0. MeetUp is a rudimentary 5.0 company. It also has 2.0 elements. New York City is the ultimate Web 5.0 destination. This is the Amazon forest of humanity. People from every town on earth live here. That is why I have suggested it is poised to become the Silicon City. There is no better place on earth for 5.0, that's why. (Social Networking: Where The Internet Comes Down From The Clouds)
Image via CrunchBaseI have been aware of 4Chan although I have never visited the site. But this guy is convincing. I think I do want a 4Chan log in option like I have Facebook and Twitter log ins, as pervasive. I like the idea of multiple log in names that you chose for yourself. 
Image via CrunchBaseThe terms social media and new media are makeshift. Watching TV with friends can be a perfectly social activity, but we are not thinking TV when we say social media. Radio was new at one point. But we don't think radio as new media. Social media, new media have been birthed by the internet, more specifically Web 2.0. But we don't think of email, the web's central application still, as social media, new media. 
Image via CrunchBase
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