Web 2.0 and the Virtue of Simplicity

In defining Web 2.0, many include the notion of simplicity – that 2.0 websites or web applications are simpler than before, focusing on a core set of functionality; cohesion, coherence – minimalism, if you will, in the sense that minimalism = not one superfluous element.

But why is this? Why is simplicity held as an important Web 2.0 principle? Weren’t websites simple before, and if not, how were they complex?

Perhaps it’s this: in the transition (if there ever was one) from 1.0 to 2.0, the way people interact with websites became more sophisticated. 1.0 was about navigating and consuming ‘content’. In 2.0, it’s no longer simply about one publishing party, and one consuming audience. Rather, people manage the ‘content’, they tag it, add it to their in-site list of favorites, annotate it, discuss it, rate it, or even create it. And many 2.0 websites are applications in their own right.

So, things have become more sophisticated, and as this makes a paradigm shift from the publish-consume model, to one where there ‘content’ mutates with every visit, be it by direct interaction (rating, commenting, creating), or by indirect interaction (incrementing view counts, recording terms searched for, and the path taken through the website) – as this paradigm shift is happening now, perhaps this calls for ‘less’ in the 37signals sense – for websites to be simpler as they require more sophisticated interaction?

Not that simple isn’t better …