From Web 2.0 to X 2.0

Fortunately, the main value of Web 2.0 is not its economic worth, but its social and cultural contributions, not in just Silicon Valley, but in Cyberspace.

In terms of technology or science, there is nothing new or innovative in Web 2.0. It is neither reasonable nor fair to ask two conference organizers to provide a technical breakthrough in web technology. However, Web 2.0 is indeed a breakthrough in inspiring a new attitude towards interacting and sharing through the internet, cultivating a new lifestyle in cyberspace. We have witnessed the impact of Web 2.0 by watching X 2.0 mushrooming everywhere: Politics 2.0, Government 2.0, Education 2.0, Science 2.0, Business 2.0, Publishing 2.0, Entertainment 2.0, Emergency 2.0, you name it! Mr. Barack Obama was dubbed the President 2.0, elected in the first real Campaign 2.0. Last year, I myself wrote an article about Management 2.0 and gave a presentation on Control 2.0 to graduate students at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

With X 2.0 all over the place, our life is now even more closely intertwined with the Web, changing our lifestyle forever. As a business model, Web 2.0 may continue to sell negligible advertising, but its grander vision emerges from a rapid and interactive social dynamic process governed by Merton’s self-fulfilling prophecy. With the semantic web dubbed Web 3.0, and perhaps social computing as Web 4.0, the future of the Web is getting to be more and more fascinating. Soon, Cyberspace, the so-called virtual space, will be as real to us as our familiar physical space. Like the mathematical concept of “complex numbers”, which includes both real and imagery numbers, with each taking 50% of the total, our future living environments should be called “complex spaces”, half physical and half virtual. If you think this is simply a far-reached fantasy, then think back to 400 years ago, when imagery numbers were thought not to exist. Today, they are half of all numbers. As the concept of numbers has changed, the concept of spaces will evolve as well. I am sure this time that it will take us less than 400 years to realize that cyberspace is as real as anything and will be half of our future world, no more, no less, just half.

Although the progression from Web 2.0 to X 2.0 and beyond is driven by technology, it is essentially a social and cultural phenomenon. Web 2.0 is not a great lie in the Web’s history; rather its social dimension simply makes a purely academic judgment invalid.

X 2.0 is the first step towards a new world in an open and primitive “complex space” that intertwines real and virtual. However, this is not the reason why it matters: X 2.0 matters because of the unprecedented level of scale and speed of its social impact and consequence.

A vivid example is the “Human Flesh Search Engine”, a new phenomenon that has swept China in recent years: unexpected digital witch hunts of common people with “uncommon” behaviors. Ordinary Chinese netizens can become cyber-vigilantes and online communities can turn into the world’s largest lynch mobs, sometimes for the good, sometimes for the bad and sometimes just plain ugly. Wielding the vast human power behind the web, the every detail of targeted victims, from their private information to their social networks, were combed through, dug up and published on hundreds of forums and chat rooms. With close to 300 million Chinese citizens wired up to the Internet, a large number of netizens can be easily mobilized to participate in such a search; the vb results are fearful and uniquely Chinese! Thus far, a few local government officials were arrested for corruptions uncovered by the human flesh search, initiated by their exorbitant use of luxury items. Their “crimes”, such as smoking expensive cigarettes or wearing expensive watches, were spotted in public meetings by netizens. However, the few who dare to be outspoken or behave eccentrically have to face, unjustified, the wrath of an online mob; a few, including a college girl and an actress, were murdered or committed suicide as a direct result of tremendous anger or peer pressure launched by the human fresh search, all for insignificant or unproved ‘wrongdoings’! Some local Chinese legislators have passed bills seeking to ban the human flesh search engine. Their actions have sparked a nationwide controversy over an individual's right to privacy versus the public's right to the truth.

On a lighter note, the Internet has produced many web versions of a modern Cinderella story, as witnessed recently by Scottish singer Susan Boyle’s instant rise to fame, which was possible only with the facilitation of Web 2.0 applications such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Boyle’s story has an earlier Chinese version, called “Lotus Sister”, where an average girl was able to achieve sudden fame by posting her weird poses on campus forums, and subsequently made a living off her phenomenal Internet success. While I am happy for these instant Web 2.0 stars, I am worried about the potential use of such tools by criminals or  terrorists for insidious purposes. To them, true or false, good or bad, does not matter; it is the result that matters. This is why I have called such phenomena “web tumors”, so far they have been benign, but we must be prepared in case they become malignant to “web cancers”.

All of this convinces me that the Tower of Babel story has an important point. Some times, we must curb our ability and slow our desires and pride.