Your Phone As 2.0

In researching Web 2.0 it slowly dawns on you that it’s a concept as old as language. It’s called a conversation. I say something and you say something in return.

There is a tendency to think that “information sharing”; “collaboration” and “crowdsourcing” are only possible on the web. These terms might seem new but they are all about having a conversation.

The first technical device that allowed conversation beyond face to face was the telephone. Even though the phone was designed as a point-to-point telecommunication devise there are still plenty of us that remember talking to several people at once on a “party line”. Now we have conference calls.

So when someone asks you about Web 2.0 you can tell him or her it’s as old as conversation and as new as 1876 when Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the patent for the first telephone.