The last few days I have been sitting and thinking about AI vs the Web 2.0 revolution back in the late 2000's. Right now we are in a AI revolution, there is just no way that you cannot argue that.
Web 2.0 was also a revolution, and where they have similar traits they are also different to an extend.
What was Web 2.0?
In my personal view Web 2.0 was like the Wild West. It was messy. It was a barren landscape and then settlers came and everyone started little towns.
In it's purest form it gave everyday people access to start sharing their ideas. Prior to Web 2.0 the only way you could do this is by starting your own website:
- Register a domain
- Develop the website
- Hope somebody finds it
In South Africa we had a different path. Access the the internet was not what it was today. We had to go to Internet Cafe's to read our emails. We all had Yahoo email addresses and used that to communicate with friends abroad.
Web 2.0 was different. It was instant communication, it was broad, it was social.
You had a plethora of social networks, photo and video sharing services, discovery websites for different niches and review sites. We know know who stood the test of time - META.
But Web 2.0 was driven by the masses. In South Africa we got participation as our internet access started to grow and improve over the years.
At the end of the day it was also a learning curve for society as we did not have rules or regulations governed by laws of the individuals countries in which we reside.
Thus, the Wild West.
What was Web 3.0?
Web 3.0 is a Silicon Valley "wet dream" started by technology publications hoping to created the next big topic for click-bait.
How many of the following topics tried to claim the Web 3.0 has started?
- IoT (Internet of Things)
- Virtual Reality
- Crypto Currencies
- NFT Token (What a bust)
With the exception of IoT, nothing really created a useful service or product that stood the test of time and offered long-term value.
Hello AI
AI for me is a very interesting space and I think we are going to see a few of the Web 2.0 giants also occupy this space once the dust has settled. I see the following trends:
- We are seeing a lot of players on the board with different offerings
- Most of them are doing similar things and the ones with better marketing and budget to grow will survive
- The craze will die down and there will be a lot of investors who will be loosing money once the dust settles
In my line of work I see a lot of people using AI to generate marketing content. That is a problem because... personally I stop trusting those brands.
When it comes to marketing, and specifically online marketing, trust is the top currency for brands.
Now we have AI models that scrape content and then produce "new" content for users and brands. With Web 2.0 we know that based on the platforms, the content was original (to an extend).
Now on things like Facebook you can see a little label saying that a post is "AI Generated". That I like. It places the onus on me to decide if I trust that brand and the content.
The restaurant dillema
Weekly I receive promotions and specials from local restaurants in my area. AI generated images with plates of food looking fantastic!
So in the week I visited one of them and started browsing the menu. I will not lie to you, the pub basket looked amazing. Golden brown samoosa's, little red sausages with just enough oil and chips that reminds you of a South Africa classic... Slap Chips.
So I ordered that and then the plate arrived...
It was dull and tasted blant. Who oversold me on this? Was it the great looking AI generated photo or was it the marketing person who did not realise that the kitchen cannot produce food at the same visual standard? A bit of both I suppose.
How this benefits me personally
Because I come from a Web 2.0 era I can see the pitfalls of AI generated content.
If you consider this blog, I wrote it without AI assistance. Google will crawl it and AI agents will crawl it and it will be treated as original content. It will rank and bring visitors to our website. That creates opportunities.
Web 2.0 gave us tools and AI is just another set of tools. People will always be in control of quality and trust; whether you are the owner of the content or the consumer of the content.
The new currency is trust.