Web 2.0 as Stone Soup

A few days ago I said I was hatching an idea which I may or may not post to the blog. Well, here it is,  crazy or not:

We might describe Web 2.0 as organic, abundant, and extremely messy. Really, it’s a soup. Maybe it's a primeval soup.  In fact it rather reminds me of stone soup. For those of you not familiar with stone soup, I googled the story and came up with several variations. Here's the one I chose to post here:

Once upon a time, somewhere in the world, there was a great famine. People jealously hoarded whatever food they could find, hiding it even from their friends and neighbors. One day a peddler drove his wagon into a village, sold a few of his wares, and began asking questions as if he planned to stay for the night.

"There's not a bite to eat in the whole province," he was told. "Better keep moving on."

"Oh, I have everything I need," he said. "In fact, I was thinking of making some stone soup to share with all of you." He pulled an iron cauldron from his wagon, filled it with water, and built a fire under it. Then, with great ceremony, he drew an ordinary-looking stone from a velvet bag and dropped it into the water.

By now, hearing the rumor of food, most of the villagers had come to the square or watched from their windows. As the peddler sniffed the "broth" and licked his lips in anticipation, hunger began to overcome their skepticism.

"Ahh," the peddler said to himself rather loudly, "I do like a tasty stone soup. Of course, stone soup with CABBAGE -- that's hard to beat."

Soon a villager approached hesitantly, holding a cabbage he'd retrieved from its hiding place, and added it to the pot. "Capital!" cried the peddler.

"You know, I once had stone soup with cabbage and a bit of salt beef as well, and it was fit for a king."

The village butcher managed to find some salt beef... and so it went, through potatoes, onions, carrots, mushrooms, and so on, until there was indeed a delicious meal for all.

The villagers offered the peddler a great deal of money for the magic stone, but he refused to sell and traveled on the next day. And from that time on, long after the famine had ended, they reminisced about the finest soup they'd ever had. (Thanks to Fractint)

You could say that in Web 2.0, the application (del.icio.us, Flickr, whatever) is the stone, and the tags are the meat and vegetables. Together they provide nourishing and complex nutrition that we can all share. I think this is a rather amusing and whimsical but probably accurate representation of the primeval soup of Web 2.0 in which all kinds of permutations can happen as long as we all contribute. Further afterthought: "as long as we all contribute quality ingredients..."

What do you think?

(Btw, re whether Web 2.0 exists or not - I don't think that matters. What matters is the conversation about it.)

Comments

[David Brake]

Actually a very useful metaphor for what Web 2.0 encourages...

By the way I found a fairly useful definition of web 2.0 by Tim O'Reilly here:
http://www.oreillynet.com/lpt/a/6228

[Sue Thomas]

Oh dear. A friend pointed out to me that the trouble with the stone soup metaphor is that it implies that Web 2.0 , like the stone in the soup, is a con. I can imagine that a lot of people might say this makes it even more appropriate (!) but it's not what I meant at all. hmm. I knew there would be something wrong with that metaphor.