Web 2.0 Slow On The Uptake

Over on the Outdoors Bloggers Forum there is an interesting thread of discussion (still in early days) around the following point (made by Duncan):

"Why do blogs allow, or even inspire, such use of different media?

We rarely see such in wiki's or other Web2.0 formats. "

He also added:

"But why are other web2.0 formats slower to change? To adopt, adapt, improve?"

My initial reply was:

"Well for a wiki, that is a group collaboration tool, so therefore it's not really suitable for audio/video.
I could see a logic for including sound or audio clips in something like wikipedia in an entry. Ie including the sound a bird makes etc.
But the point is a wiki allows folks to work on something together, and video and audio just can't be edited that easily by others.
Something like Twitter or "micro-blogging" it already allows people to embed links to video and audio, as well as photos. And people do that.
Social sites like Facebook/MySpace lots of people use video etc on their pages.
So I think your argument is only valid for a wiki."

Duncan responded with the following that expands the scope a little:

"There is nothing to stop people using wikis or forums with videos, but when was the last time you saw even the hint of thought from a retailer's website?

Some highstreet shops websites don't even have photographs of their products, let alone video clips or instructions.

It's another example of the "Long Curve", I think."

I agree with his point there is little to stop wikis or forums using video. But the point of a wiki is to enable a group collaboration on a subject/project. As I pointed out in my response I could see a use of video or audio. Just as photos are used now. But for a wiki the written word is the best medium for it to use, as this is the easiest way to have multiple people work, review and make edits to a project/entry.

Now it was also raised about forums, and why they don't use video etc. I think forums could use video and audio, some blog comments are allowing audio/video submission. So yes there is no reason why forums should not be allowing the same. I can see why from the owners point of view they would not want it (storage, bandwidth etc). Or even from the members why they would not (ie loss of spontaneity of response, ease of use, time to upload etc).

When the argument is expanded to include web sites and in particular retailers, I think Duncan has a point to some extent. But do we include web sites as web 2.0? For the sake of this argument we will.

I think retail web sites have shied away from "fancy" stuff in their online stores, mainly because they have had their fingers burnt in the past. There have been one or two spectacular failures that tried using all the latest tricks of the time. But they failed because the technology wasn't there to support them, and less people were on line. So I think that there is a little reluctance from retailers because of these past failures, despite those obstacles no longer being there.

I also think there is the over head, and investment that would be required by the retailer to produce all these videos etc of the goods on their sites, would just be prohibitive.

As for the photographs there is no excuse for not at least having a picture of the product on the site.

Anyway there are some of my thoughts on the subject. What do you think? Who is right? Do we both have valid arguments? Have we missed something? Leave a comment and let me know.