Web 2.0 for Gearheads

The sport of motorcycling consists of a number of rider communities. Many folks associate motorcyclists with either rough-and-ready riders with loud bikes, or with testosterone-laden youth who are dangerous to themselves and others - these groups are the most visible to the public. Another group is dedicated to touring and adventuring, and these riders tell the most amazing stories (Advrider is an interesting wiki site in its own right - you don't need to be a gearhead or a motorcyclist to enjoy the filmstrip of high quality photos on the entry page.) Then there is another fringe group -the folks who just enjoy how the experience and the machines come together - the ones like me who think that motorcycles are to land what sailboats are to water.

I started riding in 1979. I now own my seventh motorcycle, and am up around 80,000 or 90,000 career miles. Oddly enough, after owning some larger, more sophisticated bikes, I now ride a lowly Kawasaki Ninja 250 similar to this one, a motorcycle that most motorcyclists sneer at for is small size and even smaller motor. Interestingly, with a motor only nominally larger than a lawn mower, it is still capable of cruising faster than any speed limit in the US, and gets 70 miles to the gallon while doing so. I rode it to work about 90 days this year, a 95-mile per day commute, and some days covered 300 miles. But I digress.

So what does any of this have to do with Web 2.0? Recently, my Ninja left me stranded on I-84. I got it running again, but it would only function at full throttle, a condition that made the 100-mile run home rather interesting. Turned out, it was the carburetors (shown below using a picture from Ninja250.org), which needed to be rebuilt in order to resolve the problem. Three times. Eventually, I got it all back together (one of my other interests is turning wrenches) with some good instructions and advice. That's where Web 2.0 comes in . . .

Initially, I turned to the Kawasaki repair manual, the de facto standard for all things Ninja 250. Written by Kawasaki in the 1980's, the book seems like it is translated from another language. Poorly written, poorly organized, and poorly photographed, it's a usability train wreck. It takes nearly a full page to tell me that the carburetor float height specification is 17 millimeters. Again, I digress . . .  


The most relevant and useful information for my problem was found at ninja250.org, a wiki frequented by other Ninja 250 owners who share experiences, problems, and knowledge about these bikes. I was able to view and print instructions for getting carbs off my bike, rebuilding the units, and tuning the carbs after getting it all back together. I was even able to query other owners about my problem, who then provided advice and encouragement.  

That's what I like about wikis - the user-generated content is often the best available because it is born of the experience of the end users. In this case, the instructions, and photographs were much better than the information provided by the manufacturer. My tenure as a Volvo owner had me surfing another excellent site, brickboard.com, for years. Every wrench-turning friend I know has a favorite wiki for their vehicle.


Wikis are my favorite example of Web 2.0 applications. What's Web 2.0? That's the subject of some debate. In my opinion, Web 2.0 consists of sites that are all about viewers interacting with user-generated data. In the case of the Ninja250.org and Brickboard wikis, the users both benefit from and contribute to the site, which maintains the information in databases viewed by all. Each of these sites have user communities consisting of thousands of individuals, many who post contributions, such as I did recently when I saw an New York Times article on helmet design. This generated a threaded discussion on the matter, each entry of which was copied to my email. That's another feature of Web 2.0 applications- they signal the users based on database events, such as when another user responds to my post.

I will soon post another item to Ninja250.org - pictures of the auxiliary gravity-feed  fuel system I constructed from a turkey baster to diagnose carb dysfunction right on my workbench, something which may make life easier for my Ninja 250 colleagues. My postings are examples of the kind of user-generated data that makes wikis dynamic and useful. You won't find Kawasaki's tech writers publishing the turkey baster idea anytime soon.


So if Web 1.0 consists of web sites we read like magazines, then Web 2.0 consists of applications that we both read and contribute to. Tim O'Reilly at O'Reilly Media is widely credited with promoting the term Web 2.0 in 2005. In his article, he elaborates on the principles that are common to Web 2.0 sites, indicating that Web 2.0 applications are the ones that get better with increased use, and conversely, that these applications consist of data and operations that must be maintained daily in order to function. Mr. O'Reilly's doesn't give a bona fide definition, rather his ideas are best defined by a table that he included in the article:



Mr. O'Reilly later refined his definition as:

'Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform. Chief among those rules is this: Build applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them. (This is what I've elsewhere called "harnessing collective intelligence.")'

This definition references an important concept - computing services will not be hosted on our own computers or on a dedicated machine on the other end, but by the software interface that exists somewhere in between. This software will capitalize on data derived from users. This is the heart of the interactivity I experienced on the wikis I described above, and will continue to define and shape our collective web experiences.

Some are saying that we are moving on to Web 3.0. From what I've read, Web 3.0 might be the web that evolves from interactive to proactive, the web that could assist you by learning patterns about your behavior and choices. For instance, by recording your internet search habits, Web 3.0 applications could return customized results for different individuals even though those individuals input the same search terms. It could track your preferences and tell you where to take your spouse for dinner and a movie. Maybe it could become the web that tells you what to do. And if you are designer, how do you design for that?

This kind of pro-activity seems fascinating to some, but a bit big-brotherish to me. It seems that privacy issues might loom large in this model. However, I might become less skitish if some Web 3.0 application could rebuild my carbs FOR me.