Cow’s Blog

December 8th, 2005

Is it just me who doesn’t see the whole point of this Ajax/Web 2.0 fad? People are creating products which are built using Ajax and then sell it based on the fact that it’s Ajax - not that it’s actually made the product any better. AjaxWhois is one example of ultra-banal use of Ajax. It’s Ajax how? You don’t have to submit the form when you’ve finished typing in the domain name. And it’s certainly not Web 2.0.

Google is often cited as a pioneer of "Ajax". Ok, there’s Google Suggest. Keyword suggestion is absolutely useless. It interferes with the browser’s autocomplete. Does anyone actually use this instead of the standard Google? Gmail makes some good use of Ajax but it’s hardly changing the way people are thinking about web applications. And at least they don’t try to sell their product on the fact it uses this new technology called Ajax.

Do you honestly think that a normal person is going to use a website or a product simply because it’s "Ajax" or "Web 2.0"? I really wish that people would stop using Ajax for the sake of it. It’s developed all kinds of insane conventions such as double clicking a paragraph to edit it. On one BB I used (I can’t remember which), when you click on that "Edit" button, the UI gets in your way once again and asks you if you want to edit the post inline or bring up the full editor. I don’t care!!!

Go Flock Yourself had a hilarious article on Writely - an AJAX word processor.

When was the last time you sat down to write a document and said, “damn, I wish I could have someone going along and randomly changing shit at the same time I’m writing it?” Well, that time is NOW, as today we have Brian Livingston glibly informing us of how the power of AJAX will soon shift the entire word processing paradigm. Personally, I can’t wait until I can have someone edit my thoughts before I’ve even properly finished composing them. That will be great. Really.

Go Flock Yourself has also decided to create a new Web 2.0 application - Shitlistr.

Recently, I signed up to a web game. It prided itself on using Ajax and of course it was a beta test and you just had to get an invite. Use of Ajax? When you did something, only part of the page updated. The game was crap.

Luckily, some good things have actually come out of this "Ajax Revolution" (and I’m pretty sure that this time next year people won’t be hailing Ajax as something which will change the entire way you think about life). We have the awesome Prototype Javascript library. Yes, it’s a Javascript library, not an Ajax library.

Please, stop creating new problems so you can use this cool, new technology and actually use this technology to solve some existing problems. 

As for the Web 2.0 revolution? This is more like Web 1.1. This "revolution" is nothing more than a Javascript renaissance. Ajax is too often used as a marketing term for Javascript. "Now enhanced using Javascript" and "Now you can perform queries to a WHOIS database with Javascript Enhancements" don’t quite have the same ring to it. 

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