Web 2.0

The internet has evolved. A network that once began as merely a series of links between computers has now grown into an “Internet of Things” in which both users and computer programs manipulate and distribute information dynamically. This new stage in the development of the internet, one in which participation of both human and non-human users is highlighted, has been termed “Web 2.0”.

In this new form of the internet, we discover a new breed of information entities, Blogjects, which dynamically upload information about themselves to the internet. Consider the example of the Pigeon that Blogs, a project in which a flock of pigeons outfitted with GPS and spectroscopic devices transmitted their position and information about their environment to the internet. Like a human internet user, the Pigeon device, an inanimate object, is dynamically generating information that can lead to meaningful conclusions about how pollution or other environmental factors influence pigeon migration patterns.

This is a prime example of the internet modeling reality through data structures, an idea brought forth by Web 2.0. The term “data structures” refers particularly to the ides of Object Oriented Programming (OOP), a computer science concept in which “objects”, or meaningful units of code, encapsulate a set of data and functions to access or manipulate that data. The shipping industry as it exists today is a prime example of how OOP is used to model real world objects. Most packages are using radio frequency ID (RFID) tags or bar codes to allow for accurate tracking information. As far as the company is concerned, the information about the size, destination, and location of the package are all that is important, and thus this set of three values defines this object. This is the limited extent to which a real object is represented in the “Internet of Things”.

But to what extent will Web 2.0 lead to humans being “objectified”? Consider Amazon.com’s suggestion algorithms that take information about the items users have browsed and generate a fingerprint of that user’s shopping interests. Again, the website has determined the minimum amount of information necessary to define the user and actively manipulates the user’s web experience to suit the interests it believes the user has. However, in doing this, the website has focused the user on a certain set of products, gradually making real the assumptions made by the original suggestion algorithm. As the website becomes more dynamic, the user must become more static, or “objectified”. An extreme extrapolation of this concept appears in the film “2015”, in which people are classified to the extent of having their personal information and interests summed up in a few words on an identification card.

The evolution of the internet into a participation-based architecture of information has resulted in a far more dynamic representation of static objects and a higher level of classification of individuals, bringing into question the idea of a more intelligent, more “human” internet resulting in the objectification of its human users. If the Amazon.com model were to be extrapolated and used by every website that users visit, and if users gradually adapted to meet the profiles suggested by the dynamic websites, the fictional musings of “2015” could become a disturbing reality.