If a primary goal is to blur the line between web and client-server apps, let’s look a little more closely at these rich client interfaces.

A well-designed Web 2.0 application is doing considerably more anticipatory work – pre-fetch operations, validation. Clients will request lots of data (some they will never need). This looks different on the wire. The traditional back and forth call and response model is left behind.

And this has nothing to do with bandwidth. Because latency is so expensive and has limits on a continental scale, cache awareness and pre-fetching will be used more – and more uniformly – to smooth out user interactions.

Again, I have no idea whether L3 has given this any thought but it is a more interesting thread than the “pile on the marketing dweebs”.

Neil
(sole conflict is as a career product manager)

Death to buzzwords and hype. Life to substance and reality.

I was hoping to learn something new about Level3 considering I sold against them at Cogent. In general they were able to keep a higher price than us due to a better name. You are all correct that the larger names will often ask for free or below cost bandwidth. In my mind not a good way to build a stable business and leads to boom bust.

I think that it makes sense to advertise where your customers are, so if Level3 sees that their customers are web2.0 and use lots of bandwidth then thats sensible. In fact this points to a refreshing change in the internet world where suppliers actually understand their customers apps.

This leads to my last point, The industry is not just Telecoms(Plumbing) or Internet or Web2.0 its a stack. Each company plays its part. If any part of the stack is not performing: ie no bandwidth, software crashes, cable break then the “Application” stops and the users turns to something else. We should all remember that we are competing more with daily papers, the television, radio etc (The oldernets).

For our own wellbeing remember what happened when we all didn’t understand each other. As one person said Level3 was designed 10 years to early. Probably due to some MBA in SSB or MS etc.

On a lighter note. With the changes in the US political scene does that mean a more optimistic tech market?

I don’t think it’s wrong to question the Web 2 marketing spiel. In fact, I think it’s healthy given all the misconceptions and hype surrounding the term. Whether or not Level 3 is viable as long-term growth business remains to be seen, and to me, is irrelevant in the context of this conversation. I am just curious about how you can be so smug about their marketing approach to web 2.

“Hate to break it to you guys, but you paint a pony with black stripes, it doesn’t become a zebra. You are a bandwidth provider, and might become a content delivery network, but you will still remain in the background, and a plumbing company. Not that there is anything wrong with it.”

I trust that you’ve been in this business long enough to know that marketing is about perception and not reality. If you’re going to call them out on their marketing BS, then you open yourself up to the same criticisms for you are both riding on the coattails of this web 2.0 meme.

I mean, Widgets Live, seriously. You’re making money on selling tickets to a conference about widgets. If not for all the developers out there busting their ass to build cool stuff, what would you be doing? How would you be earning your money? It’s ok for you to glom onto Web 2.0 as a means to boost traffic and revenue but not Level 3. That just seems weird to me.

What web 2.0 is really about is the people who take that idea and create something unique with it … and not the marketing folks and journalists who spin it well out of proportion.

Like it or not, Level 3 is a player in the Web 2 space and stands to gain from it if they execute on the opportunity. Besides, without plumbing, what we’d be left with is a steaming pile of shit.

:)

cheers

As stated before, this company will go BK and i intend to bring beer and popcorn to the hearings. Let’s kick it around, then.