New Scientist are running an article in their end of year special about how Christmas and New Year parties have changed since the advent of mobile phones.
What happens is that the parties start out with pretty much a random number of people (depending on the number of friends that you have). That much we know from our student days. The difference now is that people then ring round with mobile phones to find out which party is best, leading them to flock to one that appears the most popular. One unfortunate party host is quoted as having his 2 bedroom apartment swamped by 120 people within 15 minutes. Great party, but his neighbours were not as happy.
So what has this got to do with your choice of technology, be it database, language, toolkit or operating system? Web 2.0 is the broad equivalent of the mobile phone – people to people conversations giving their opion on what is good and what is not. At parties, nobody wants to be the last one sitting in the room trying to think of something to say to the abandoned host. Likewise with technology – who wants to be the last one using a technology that is soon going to be abandonded? Web 2.0 speeds up this process of ‘flocking’ to the most popular choice.
Paul Browne 