Round 2: Dial Tone

Fri

Aug 18
2006

listen

In a conversation yesterday, John Fandel, the general manager of The O'Reilly Network, made an interesting point: he wants to build our web publishing tools around the model of delivering "dial tone."

As we talked, the idea took hold. I was reminded of Michael Crichton's observation in his 1983 book Electronic Life that 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.

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. (Bill Janeway made this linkage to customer self-service as a key driver of success in the internet economy in a presentation he gave at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference in 2004. Mitch Ratcliffe blogged his notes from a similar talk that Bill gave at a Red Herring conference.)

You can regard the history of the computer industry as pushing "dial tone" further and further up the stack. As Crichton noted, the rotary dial telephone was the first computer that allowed direct interaction between humans and computers. The personal computer pushed customer self service up the stack to programming, data processing, and eventually applications such as word processing and spreadsheets.

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. P2P applications are dial tone for file transfer. sourceforge and collab.net are software project hosting dial-tone. Craigslist is classified advertising dial-tone.

Similarly, you can look at personal databases like Access and Filemaker, and open source databases like MySQL as moving in the direction of providing database dial tone.

Once you frame the problem in this way, you understand that one of the challenges for IT departments and companies used to the IT mindset is to get the operators out of the way, and to build new processes that let users do the work for themselves. You also can ask yourself, where is dial tone going next?

Round 2: A series of occasional postings around the theme that patterns and ideas recur, or as Arlo Guthrie said in Alice's Restaurant, "come around again on the gee-tar."

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Comments: 9

Kevin Farnham [08.18.06 07:21 AM]

The dial tone concept is interesting. The success of MySpace is attributed by many people to its open structure which allows users to embed their own code into their profiles, blog entries, and the comments they post on other people's profiles. Given the opportunity, people will indeed "program" their MySpace sites, including a great many people who otherwise know nothing about software engineering. This has spawned thousands of web sites that provide "codes" for non-programmer MySpace users.

The next step--one of my goals on MySpace--is to spread awareness that these codes themselves are not too difficult to customize, once you understand the meaning of the characters, once you understand that the words and symbols themselves are actually nothing more than representations of commands and switches, similar to the buttons and links people see on web pages or on their iPods and cell phones. In other words, it's not a huge step from cutting and pasting codes into your MySpace profile to actually looking at the codes, understanding them, modifying/customizing the codes you get from other people, and, finally, creating your own codes--which is programming. Then if you share your code with others, you become a participant in the creation and extension of this human/computer interface "dial tone."

Of course, the dial tone is an interface between a human and a computer, but its goal is to facilitate communication and transmission of information between two or more humans, asynchronous communication in the case of blogs and sites like MySpace...

Tim O'Reilly [08.18.06 08:51 AM]

Nice comments and information, Kevin. I'm not as familiar with myspace as I should be, and it's great to have someone reporting on that front of the Web 2.0 expansion. Feel free to give us more details about interesting news from myspace here. If it doesn't fit as comments on existing entries, send me ideas directly via email.

Chaim Krause [08.18.06 10:48 AM]

The problem I have with such a definition is that it begs the question, "So What?". Many things have "create[d] a situation where users can do something for themselves that once required the intervention of an operator". Why weren't they called Web 2.0?

I believe that Web 2.0 is more than about technology, or, as in the sense used by Tim and Kevin above, the availability and ease of use of that technology to the "average" person.

"So What?" is a question that helps to discern the portion that, to me, seems to be missing from a purely technical definition.

I can think of two possible answers.

The first answer is that Web 2.0 simplifies life (for a lack of a better term, or maybe repetitive tasks) by providing a central/unified tool. It is easier to use one tool for ten tasks then ten different tools to do the same ten tasks. One can also become more proficient with a tool by using that one tool ten times than they can by using ten different tools only once each.

Also, Web 1.x was limited predominately to information/nouns. You gave data to or received data from Web 1.x. Web 2.0 is predominately action/verb based. People accomplish tasks via Web 2.0. IOW Web 1.x required using (and gaining proficiency with) multiple other tools while Web 2.0 can be used as a (single) tool itself.

Web 1.x stored/delivered documents. Web 2.0 allows for the creation of and collaboration on documents. (Documents could be created without operators before 2.0) Web 1.x stored/delivered photographs. Web 2.0 allows for the creation and manipulation of photographs, or the ability to transform a photograph into a physical coffee mug or a physical calendar. (Amateur photographers and hobbyist craft-makers didn't require operators.) Web 1.x stored/delivered phone numbers, but Web 2.0 provides a way to place phone calls. (People could place conventional landline or cellphone calls without an operator during Web 1.x.)

So, Web 2.0 combines a)the ability to perform a task (do a verb) and b) the ability to do it all using one unified tool (the web browser/platform) - So What? - to make taking care of reoccurring, necessary, day-to-day tasks easier than it was prior to Web 2.0.

Web 1.0 provided the data that people worked with using disparate tools. A phone number on a web page required a telephone to use. A document stored on an FTP server required a word processing application to use. A data file from your bank's or broker's website required Quicken or MS Money to be of any value.

Web 2.0 provides one multi-purpose tool to make the telephone call (Skype, etc.), collaborate on a document(Writely, etc.), balance your checkbook (an AJAX enabled bank website).

The second answer involves, not the technology, but the people using the technology.

I propose that (in general) Web 2.0 requires the self-service component, but also requires (of course this is only my personal conclusion based on personal observation) the attitude/opinion of the user that they can obtain a better result/outcome/product by self-service than they could obtain via a means that was not self-service.

Web 2.0 not only allows a person/group to make 100 physical high-quality calendars for their group, but the Web 2.0 user(s) believe(s) they can use Web 2.0 to do it quicker, with less aggravation, simpler, in a word, better, than could be done by another means. IOW by using Web 2.0 to perform the tasks of seeking/obtaining/manipulating possible photos/paper/fonts and discussing/presenting/choosing between themselves the various options, they can obtain/create a better calendar themselves, than can be obtained/created by others using other (non Web 2.0) tools.

An attempt at a summary:

Web 2.0 is defined by

its ability to perform actions with/on things rather than simply store/deliver things,
thereby allowing for simplification (of daily life) via a single multi-use tool/platform
that allows a user to gain proficiency more rapidly than via multiple tools/platforms
and users that believe, because of their rapidly-gained high proficiency with Web 2.0, they can create/obtain a better result/product than could be obtained via other means/tools.

Please forgive me as this is the first time I have attempted to commit these disparate thoughts to written words.

Dragos Ilinca [08.18.06 12:37 PM]

I think we are headed towards something like a shared DIY economy. The revolutionary change that I'm noticing is that we are changing ourselves from being highly specialized in one area to being just literate in hundreds of areas.

This, I think, is the key issue. It's now all about integration rather than division.

In this age, the people that will succeed the most will be 1 or 2% better in hundreds of areas rather than being hundreds of percent better in just one area.

This is now not just possible, but highly probable as the educational entry barrier in using technology is getting lower and lower.

Ellen Weber [08.18.06 02:12 PM]

Your report of the dial-tone system and metaphor particularly interested me because it is headed toward opening doors for other kinds of thinkers. Some people are better at the IT and others are better at using the technology in very different but equally creative ways. At the moment -- the IT learning is so high that the rest gets lost because one has to spend hours learning and updating IT skills.

Brain Based Business

Until we move past that stage -- we will only hold back other forms of creativity that could use more technology with less specialty in that angle of their work. Thanks for offering hope for change here! Great discussion and it makes me appreciate the tech specialists even more.

Lev [08.19.06 05:57 PM]

Wow - nice discussion. It raises a lot of aspects. I was very intrigued by Tim's "dial tone" metaphor, but I couldn't work out what it was that made me want to comment on it until I read Chaim's "So what?" comment. Then it struck me that it was "So what?" that was popping up in my head too.

Don't get me wrong, I think Tim's thoughts about the emergence and development of the internet are very insightful and, I agree, the facts and observations you raise are too often overlooked and forgotten.

But if I sit down and think about why that is, I come to the conclusion that it must be based on one thing:

Evolution.

My colleague's son, who is 12 years old, probably couldn't care less about the history of the internet and other open source developments. He was born into a world where the internet/web already existed and he takes it for granted.

There is a disconnect between two generations, the same disconnect between the generations that were around when the telephone went mainstream, or the automobile, or the commercial plan ? I could go on, but you get my point.

I guess what I am trying to say is that we are dealing with a situation where something as significant as the creation and popularisation of the internet was witnessed by one generation, while the next was born into it and has never known a world where the fax machine was the most you could hope for in a modern work environment.

Aren't we simply experiencing a shift where what we learned during the late 80s and 90s has almost become obsolete now, because the next generation doesn't actually need to know how it all started. I had the same thoughts when my friends started making their own websites with a WYSIWYG html editor. After all the work of learning the different HTML tags, my knowledge was almost insignificant because the WYSIWYG html editor allowed anyone to make a website.

Short of being bitter about it, I can see how the new generation will start sticking the finger up at us because while we need to adapt and learn, they simply take Web 2.0 in their stride. So what we are looking at here is a development whereby we allow the next step to be taken more easily because the foundations have been solidly laid.

So my question to you is this ? Is ?dial tone? not just a way of putting a word to the process of evolution?

But to answer your questions as to ?where does dial tone go next?? ? if we knew that then we could jump one stage of evolution, and I don?t know if that is a good thing. One thing is for sure however - the task that lies ahead of IT companies is to try and keep up with the speed that my colleague?s 12 year old son adapts to new developments.

Mike [08.20.06 08:46 AM]

Must be humbling - finally stumbling onto what Scott McNeally was telling you what?... 5? 6?.. years ago. IIRC he was calling it "webtone" - a clumsy and dumb name, but anyway - same thing.

I don't imagine for one mikro2nd that Scott though of it himself (though I can probably hazard a couple of good guesses who did think of it). Nevertheless, Sun is /still/ light years ahead of the rest of us.

Tim O'Reilly [08.20.06 09:07 AM]

Mike - you're right that Sun (or more specifically, John Gage, who comes up with a lot of these ideas) is light years ahead. But that being said, I don't think that even though the words are similar, that the ideas are necessarily the same.

Take Sun's famous "The network is the computer." It was originally coined to describe a vision of LAN computing, and in fact, when the commercial Internet came along, I spent some time trying to get Sun's marketing folks to expand the way they were using it to put Sun front and center in the internet revolution, but they weren't interested. (They'd switched to another marketing slogan, I forget which, just at the wrong time.) But even if they'd used it, I don't think any of us fully understood in the late 80's and early 90's just how true that statement would become.

So when Sun invited me to keynote at JavaOne in 2000, and I gave the talk "The network really is the computer," I used Sun's language but talked about the need for web services (which weren't yet au courant) so we could use web databases as software components and a rediscovery of the Unix pipes and filter mechanism for same (i.e. mashups), which wasn't at all what Sun meant by their original phrase. They were seeing the future, but that future was richer and more complex than they originally envisioned. Step by step it becomes clearer.

So it is with webtone. Go read Sun's original press release on webtone. You'll see that they define it as giving "give companies and institutions round-the-clock network dependability for communicating internally and conducting business with suppliers, customers and partners."

Here, the critical element is not dependability or ease of access, it's user self-service. While there are elements of what I'm talking about here in Sun's concept, I don't think it's the same focus at all, which is no operator intervention.

For example, they would probably not think of Amazon as ecommerce dialtone (as I might), or the consumer uptake of photoshop, photoshop elements, and other digital photography editing tools as kodak dialtone, but those things would be included by the way I'm framing this concept.

But hey, it's not about who said something first. We all build on each other's ideas, and the fun is using those ideas to see the world in a new way.