Web 2.0

Tim O'Reilly, of O'Reilly publishing, coined the now popular term, Web 2.0. On his website, he describes it as, "Design pattersn and business models for the next generation software."

There was a lot of controversy over the term, only a year or so ago, but now - anyone writing about or referring to the interactivity on today's Internet, uses it. O'Reilly writes,

"...what was it that made us identify one application or approach as "Web 1.0" and another as "Web 2.0"? (The question is particularly urgent because the Web 2.0 meme has become so widespread that companies are now pasting it on as a marketing buzzword, with no real understanding of just what it means. The question is particularly difficult because many of those buzzword-addicted startups are definitely not Web 2.0, while some of the applications we identified as Web 2.0, like Napster and BitTorrent, are not even properly web applications!) We began trying to tease out the principles that are demonstrated in one way or another by the success stories of web 1.0 and by the most interesting of the new applications."

The article is extensive and requires more reading than one can put in a blog post (or should put in a blog post) so I encourage you to go over and read it closely, for yourself.

In the meantime, I believe O'Reilly is right. Those of us engaged in the interactive web - whether that be social networking, blogging, social media, blogging, wikis, blogging - or whathaveyou, are  prone to describe what we do as Web 2.0. When, in truth, few of us every really understood Web 1.0.

I like the term Web 2.0 - and I use it to refer to a web that allows give and take, conversation, pull-marketing as opposed to push marketing. I like the long-tail concept of Web 2.0 and I like that the term is easy to say and to write. It works better than folksonomy, which is another emerging label people are putting on the way the web works now.

And, still, the Web 2.0 term has its detractors. Those who believe allowing the "masses" a voice in how they use the web, or how they want advertising delivered to them, is tandamount to - chaos. They think we will be overrun with mediocrity. They predict the end of civilization and learning.

And so, it is up to you to decide. It's up to you to accept responsibility for your words - and mine. For content in blogs written by schoolboys (or girls) or blogs written by professional journalists. It's your responsibility to take the Web 2.0 applications and figure out if they are helping make life better, or worse.

Come to think of it - hasn't that been your (our) responsibility all along? I guess Web 2.0 hasn't really changed anything - has it?