In the years prior to the whole Web 2.0 and Social Media just about all of the methods of communication had specific protocols that had to be followed regardless of the company or developer wanting to use them. Requests for Comments – otherwise known as RFC’s – mailing lists were the battleground where all the protocols used by Web 1.0 were fought over. In the end though we had a set of standard protocols that have served us well since that time. Sure they are added to or changed as we have moved forward but the point is that these protocols were the common ground that all developers worked with for the benefit of all the users.

Now APIs are not anything new either. They have been around for as long as Windows; or any other operating system for that matter, has been letting developers create applications to run on that platform. The problem with APIs though is that they are generally proprietary in nature and as a results only allow interaction with the host platform. Unlike the universal protocols like FTP, Email, NNTP, Gopher, IRC or Ping which were developed to open up communications between different systems regardless of where they were.

With the arrival of Web 2.0 and the proliferation of APIs it was thought that this new openness would increase our inter-communication abilities between these new forms of communicating across the web. What they have in fact done is create nothing more than new silos for us to all sit inside of. Sure we have things like FriendFeed which strives to use those foreign APIs to bring everything under one roof but once there that is were we remain.

Sure we say these APIs are all open and available to all but the recent downtime of Twitter and its follow up actions to limit access to that API or to actually take down parts of its service only goes to show that these APIs aren’t as open as we would like to think. Web 2.0 and Social Media has built itself as the new style of open communication and brags how it is set to replace things like Email and IRC. The problem is that as long as any company bills itself as the provider of a new and better form of communication and lay claim to ownership of those connectors (API) to that method of communication we will find ourselves locked within that system.

Shey Smith inadvertently pointed out this problem today [nw] in a post where he suggested how the three main third party commenting platform; Disqus, IntenseDebate, sezWho, could work together to create a common platform that then could be accessed by all – including themselves. As good as this would and something I have wondered about myself it will never happen because contrary to popular belief Web 2.0 and Social Media isn’t about opening up lines of communications that is equal to for all and accessible by everyone.

When Web 1.0 was king and everything was new there was a feeling among the developers of exploration and real openness. All the protocols we use without any thought; and upon which Web 2.0 and Social Media is built on, were created by people who didn’t want anything for their work. There were no VC backed start-ups behind things like HTTP or TCP/IP. Nor were there any global corporations investing billions in things like FTP or IRC. Everything we use on a daily basis came from people doing what they did for the real and pure love of it.

Web 2.0 and Social Media might like to espouse an open and transparent working of the web in the hyped up rhetoric of doing it for the people when in fact nothing could be further from the truth. Facebook isn’t about openness, Twitter keeps the locks on their doors nice and tight and even the newest darling of the early adopters FriendFeed has their secrets. All these so-called harbingers of a new era of the web aren’t doing what they do out of any true goodness of their hearts. In the end it will always be about the making of money which there is nothing wrong with except that they aren’t being honest about their motivations.

As much as everyone likes to put down the whole Web 1.0 experience because of what happened as a result of the dot com crash they seem to forget that we wouldn’t be where we are if it wasn’t for the people who created the very protocols we depend on daily. Without those people we would still be in the world of dial up and bulletin board services and even that is questionable. Until Web 2.0 and all the Social Media companies can honestly say that they have contributed something to really progress us along this thing we call the Internet and the Web then what they are doing is nothing but selfish hype and just another get rich quick scheme for which we pay the price.

If there is really the desire to open the web then we need to take the lessons of our web torchbearers and really open up the web. We have gotten to where we are because of open protocols and the time for Web 2.0 to live up to its professed ethos is coming. It is time that we the users of the Web start looking for these so-called believers in transparency to step up to the plate. It is time to quit trying to lock us into so-called open APIs so they can make more money that most of us will ever see in our lives.

It is time that we the users stop accepting that we must use one or another method of communication just because some Web 2.0 or Social Media start-up on the hunt for big bucks says we have to. The time is coming when we should expect that any new form of communication should be on the basis of an open and accessible protocol available to all. Just as Email or NNTP was a common ground protocol so should any API of the new web that enables communication between people.

It is time for APIs to stop pretending to be open and actually become the future open protocols that the web was founded on. Protocols that came into being for nothing more than the love of giving something to the people.