hmmm… so thats what it’s for
It’s never really occured to me, despite hearing it practically everyday, that dial tones actually serve a purpose. Yeah, I know it’s pretty obvious, but it’s somethings thats become entirely ubiquitous.
Tim O’Reilly posted this gem over at O’Reilly Radar:
It’s such a simple idea too!Dial-tone is also a fabulous metaphor for one of the key principles of Web 2.0, which I’ve called “the architecture of participation,” but which might also simply be described as the design of systems that leverage customer self-service.
In the 1940’s there was concern that the telephone system was growing so fast that there wouldn’t be enough operators unless AT&T hired every person in America. AT&T solved the problem by creating automated switching systems that, in effect, did turn every person in the world into an operator–without hiring them. The principle of dial tone is to create a situation where users can do something for themselves that once required the intervention of an operator.
New applications often start out requiring operators, but eventually move towards dial-tone. For example, you can look at blogging as the “dial tone” equivalent of creating a web site. For ordinary folks (not most of my readers, but non-technical folks), creating a web site was something that required an operator. You went to a web design shop or an ISP and had them do it for you. The blogging revolution, the wiki revolution, the MySpace revolution, the CyWorld revolution, are really about providing a kind of self-service dial-tone for creating a web presence and community.
Tim’s right, this really is one of the key principles of Web 2.0. I’m really interested in seeing what the ‘dail tone’ to Location Based Services (which will truely transform the world) will look/sound like. I’ve need to let this sink in :)
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