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#web2.0#xml#semanticweb

Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

Michael Wesch

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  • Recommended by 2 people: 2 on Hacker News.
  • Presented by Michael Wesch
  • May be out of date. Uploaded 19 years ago, in an area where tools change fast.

Beginner. No background in the topic needed.

12M views19 years ago2 recommendations

Web developmentHistory and cultureHTTP, REST and GraphQLHistory of computing

Michael Wesch explains how the read/write web, XML, and user-generated content structure digital information and connect people.

Web 2.0 in just under 5 minutes. The Art of Being Human amzn.to/2vDOPUo Free Anthropology Course: anth101.com Social Media: @mwesch My statement on XML is based on the following from xml.com: "In order to appreciate XML, it is important to understand why it was created. XML was created so that richly structured documents could be used over the web. The only viable alternatives, HTML and SGML, are not practical for this purpose. HTML, as we've already discussed, comes bound with a set of semantics and does not provide arbitrary structure." The song is "There's Nothing Impossible" by Deus, available for free at jamendo.com/en/album/103/

Why it's here

2 people recommend this

What people say. Recommended as a classic, nostalgic visual explanation of Web 2.0 and the early vision of the semantic web.

vmooreon Hacker News • Recommends

On “The sum of all knowledge and the sorry state of the web”

Just going to leave this gem of a video0 here. Whilst I agree the web has been walled gardened into various silos like social media, and people think Facebook and Twitter are the Internet, it's still read/write. The blogosphere is still ticking along nicely and last time I checked it's thriving. Yes, people have gamified Google and search to get traffic and the blogosphere of old has largely been co-opted by profiteering gluttons, but there's still hope. Surf Hackernews enough and you'll find little gem posts that don't have an ulterior motive and are not 'monetizing' their content and sprinkling it with affiliate links and ADs. They just want to vent, exchange techne, and share knowledge.…
View on Hacker News

lysergiaon Hacker News • Recommends

On “The semantic web is dead – Long live the semantic web”

Long live the dream of the semantic web. For visual learners there’s a great YouTube video explaining the semantic web here: link to this video
View on Hacker News

drivers99on Hacker News • Mentions

On “MCP: An (Accidentally) Universal Plugin System”

> it’s APIs we did not have Isn't that what we had about 20 years ago (web 2.0) until they locked it all up (the APIs and feeds) again? ref: this video posted 18 years ago: link to this video (Rewatching it in 2025, the part about "teaching the Machine" has a different connotation now.) Maybe it's that the protocol is more universal than before, and they're opening things up more due to the current trends (AI/LLM vs web 2.0 i.e. creating site mashups for users)? If it follows the same trend then after a while it will become enshittified as well.
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