Jakob Nielsen Misses The Boat on Web 2.0 (Big-time)

Jakob Nielsen has been around as a usability "guru"since the early days of the Web. I used to read his Alertbox columns religiously and he always used to have great insights on how to improve websites. I've interviewed Nielsen, had lunch with him, and read his book.

But now that he's calling Web 2.0 dangerous to business and that saying that "on the Web, most people are bozos and not worth listening to," I have to agree with my friend Adriana Lukas' eponymous evaluation that Nielsen's turning into "an old fart who’s right about usability but not much else, with the syndrome ‘doesn’t understand the Web’."

After railing about the uselessness of social media,etc, etc. Nielsen concludes that incorporating "a modest 2.0 infusion can be beneficial." And he points out - bingo - that "before throwing spending money at "2.0" features, make sure that you have all the "1.0" requirements working to perfection." That last sentence, you see, is why I still read the guy.

But his post seems like a thinly disguised scheme to get bloggers to link to him (like I'm doing) and link bait for Digg and TechMeme because most people won't read past the outrageous proclamations. And that's a cheap trick Mr Nielsen, that's already back-fired on you by hurting your reputation.

Agreed, Jakob Nielsen is missing something. Web2.0 doesn't mean "doesn't work". I wrote up my thoughts on this here:

http://schlerplotti.typepad.com/quantworks/2007/12/jakob-nielsen-n.html

I'm not sure Jakob missed the boat at all on 2.0. In fact, after reading his post, I think he is right on. He's not saying 2.0 in and of itself is bad, he's only saying 2.0 used in the wrong way (which it often is) is bad for a website because it - believe it or not - confuses or frustrates users and ultimately loses money for the company.

He said the same thing about Flash when it came out and was over used on websites:

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20001029.html

People have since realized his wisdom about Flash, and they will eventually realize his wisdom about 2.0.

The reason is because his wisdom is not based on whim, but on usability studies with real users on real websites.

Btw, if you don't agree with Jakob's statement that "on the Web, most people are bozos and not worth listening to," you have to consider that you, yourself, said you had "read his book," when in actuality Jakob has written dozens of books. And Mike (the comment above) wrote a whole blog post about Jakob's article -- without even reading it.

Adam - you need to go back and re-read my post before you get all nasty about what I wrote.

Before you imply that I'm a bozo, you might want to follow the links in my post and read all the positive stuff I have written about Jakob over the years. You could also go back 10 years to see all the negative stuff I've written about Flash on websites.

What I am complaining about is that Nielsen sensationalized his actual advice, which is that a little bit of 2.0 tools can be good in the mix - only if you already have perfected 1.0.

He didn't need to call everyone online bozos to make his point. His newsletter is an obvious grab for attention from bloggers and Digg, and TechCrunch.

When you have good content, and a good point to make, you don't need to call everyone online a bozo.

Umm...I don’t think this is a reputation killer B.L. In fact, it’ll probably get a lot of people who didn’t know about Nielsen before to start reading useit.com and Alertbox. BTW, I thought it was a very interesting article that really got me thinking about usability within the Web 2.0 context (even if it was hyped by Mr. Nielsen).

I do not mind blog posts like this at all as long as they have valuable, intelligent, logically based content (whether its end result is right or wrong)…that’s something that is not always easy to find out there. Nielsen’s post inspires a very needed and healthy discussion, which in my book attracts a great deal of respect with or without the hype.