A List Apart has published an article on Web 3.0. You read right. In it, Jeffrey Zeldman expresses his hatred of the hype surrounding Web 2.0. Correctly, he implicates that Web 2.0 seems to apply to any first-to-market web application developed using AJAX and (often) Ruby on Rails, seemingly developed to get quick bucks. I couldn’t care less about Web 2.0. It’s just a daft term which means nothing. Everything on the web that is an application is just that: an application. The implementation technology is irrelevant, because fundamentally the interactivity is driven by deciding how much of the application is to be delivered at the client-end. The implication being that the more that is provided at the client-end, the better it is.

AJAX has come in for some criticism. The biggest outcry is that it is nothing new, which is correct. Asynchronous Javascript has been available since the XMLHttpRequest popped-up. But when Jesse James Garrett called it AJAX, everyone started nodding their heads, realising that there was this tranche of technology that no-one was taking advantage of. Hence the hype.

It’s not about XML either. As far as AJAX is concerned that’s just a way of delivering information between server and client. The real benefit of AJAX comes from the asynchronous delivery of content into an existing web page, using the Javascript DOM and CSS.

You don’t need Ruby on Rails – any server-side language will do – but you do need a brain… Jeffrey Zeldman has two more problems with AJAX:

AJAX is a bitch to wireframe

Wireframing is a design technique used to show, and/or prototype, every click through on a website. If you’re trying to wireframe an AJAX-based application, you’re using the wrong tool. 37 Signals think the best way is to write notes on your designs to convey all of the possibilities to your engineers. But this is rubbish. If you have designers and engineers that work like this, then you shouldn’t let either team anywhere near application development. Instead use traditional software design tools and techniques. After all, that’s what you’re producing: an application, a piece of software. Not a website. It’s just delivered using web technology.

There are no AJAX-related signifiers and conventions

Jeffrey writes that he keeps discovering new features in Flickr, some by clicking on white space. In ma.gnolia, the problem of representing additional features has been resolved by using icons. Wow! What a breakthrough. Funny how all those GUI design books from the 90s got thrown away in the rush to develop. In any case, if you want conventions and signifiers, why not look at applications that run on computers? It’s not magic.

And there’s more

Some of those that have commented on Web 3.0 seem to have a few problems in understanding all of this. Here are some choice points and my thoughts:

• Ruby on Rails / AJAX etc. is a pyramid scheme. It’s not. It’s real technology that is changing the way web applications are developed.
• The asynchronous nature of AJAX is a big problem. It’s not. If you believe this is a problem, then you’re using the wrong tool to solve your problem. Designers shouldn’t add AJAX to an application because it’s the big thing that makes their peers and clients drool. They should use AJAX when they need to. Appreciate and work within its limitations. Don’t mumble into your Starbucks and disregard it. And don’t stretch it beyond what it’s useful for.
• AJAX is expensive. It’s not. Or rather, it is if developers exploit the fashionability of AJAX, in which case they’re screwing their clients. The same case could be applied to Ruby on Rails. If you sell services on the base of value, rather than effort, then the technology you use is irrelevant.
• Flash is better for complex web apps. Hmm.. if you need Flash for a web application then you’re way off. Flash is fine for snazzy layouts and displays, for example Beatport. But come on, tell me you couldn’t do Beatport with AJAX. You could. What’s more, you could do it without AJAX.