Larry Chiang likes to tell the whole internet story in one breath, from Web 0 to Web 12. Web 0, in his telling, is the handshake era: deals closed in person, in the room, before anyone had a website at all. Web 1 is the arrival of the owned page, a static site that sat on a server you controlled and said what you wanted it to say.
Web 2 is the platform era, feeds and shares and comments, where distribution got easy but ownership got blurry. Larry’s shorthand, Web12, is Web1 plus Web2: keep the owned page from the first era, add the syndication habits of the second. The math is literal for him, one plus two equals twelve is a joke, but the logic underneath is not.
You publish the page on your own domain first, that is the Web1 half holding steady. Then you push it out through email, social posts, and trackbacks, that is the Web2 half doing the work of reach.
Skip the first half and you are just another voice inside someone else’s platform, with no home to point people back to. Skip the second half and your page sits alone, technically owned but practically invisible.
Larry says the whole point of naming it Web12 is to remind people both halves are required, not optional. Ten years from now the page from Web1 is still standing, and the reach from Web2 is what got people there in the first place.
Details: Watch the Web12 origin story
#WebHistory #OwnedMedia #Web12