Whenever you start a business the logical thing is to start with an idea that everyone needs. Everyone needs to eat so grocery stores and restaraunts exist and will probably always exist. Gas stations exist because we need gas. Simple ideas that fulfill our needs and do a good amount of business. All very common sense right?
Well, it seems we tend to avoid common sense on the web and this really hit home over the past couple of weeks. I moved to a new place last week and won’t get Internet setup until next week at my place, so during that time I have been setting up a mobile office at Barnes & Noble. Now I only sit at B&N for a couple hours max to get a couple of things done, while my partners have graciously held down the fort so the walls don’t collapse on us, but without them I wondered how much of what I do would really fall apart if I wasn’t around?
Were there any sites online that I needed to access daily? Were there any web apps that helped me get by on my day-to-day activities? There weren’t. You might think email is necessity and if you truly need to be around it 24/7 you can find a way to do that, but I have been doing just fine without it. Blogging? Not really necessary, but it will be nice to get back into a groove with it.
My point is Web 2.0 is only great for the people who create it. Living without cable and web can be a tiny bit frustrating at times, but it can also be very soothing. Where are the Web 2.0 apps that I need to access? Maybe it’s good that I really don’t need the web to survive because what if the web ceased to exist?
If you are on the web though there are some basic functions that you need.
- Web browser
- Search engine if you wish to explore
But really that’s it. We haven’t created a better place than the one that existed 10 years ago, but we have created a more feature rich place. I’m not dissing the many great apps and sites that exist today, but my brain won’t stop moving it seems until it finds that happy median between offline and online. The more connected I become, the less connected I want to be.
Originally posted on September 5, 2006 @ 2:00 pm