Web 2.0 – Good vibe, bad name

— Published October 28th, 2005  |  by Brian Donohue

What is Web 2.0?

And here is the problem. There are as many definitions of Web 2.0 as there are blogs. (The conference web site conveniently avoids trying to define it.)

Wikipedia defines it as the "perceived transition... from a collection of web sites to a full fledged computing platform serving web applications to end users". But haven't web applications been around for years?

Probably the most authoritative attempt at defining Web 2.0 comes from Tim O’Reilly, who is the main person behind the Web 2.0 conference and whose colleague coined the term a year and a half ago. Tim recently wrote an article trying to clarify what Web 2.0 is.

What’s most remarkable about this lengthy article is that he doesn't ever define Web 2.0. Rather, he keeps trying to explain it at length through different examples of what it is and what it isn't. These examples do make sense, but it's hard to figure out how they all tie together. At the end he summarizes the "core competencies" of Web 2.0 companies, which include "services, not packaged software, with cost-effective scalability... trusting users as co-developers, harnessing collective intelligence, leveraging the long tail through customer self-service..."

Oh dear. That sounds eerily like consultant-speak.

And in an earlier blog he acknowledges "we are quite arguably on 3.0 or even 8.0". Not really helping the cause here, Tim.

In contrast, you can watch a genuinely riveting presentation about Identity 2.0 (see if you’re not hooked after the first minute of it), in which Dick Hardt very clearly explains how identity 2.0 is a distinctly different beast from identity1.0. No confusion there.

And another recent blog says that Web 2.0 doesn’t mean anything yet, but at the same time, it’s important because we’re in the middle of a "renaissance".

The confusion and debate has sparked a backlash with some prominent bloggers promising they'll never use the term, and others warning that this is a sign we’re approaching Bubble 2.0.

Is there any substance here at all?

Actually, yes. The concept may be slippery, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore it. What’s important about Web 2.0 is the advances in the web it tries to unite (even though many of these advances aren't really that new). These include:

• AJAX – this is not a new technology, but a new use of existing technologies that enables web applications to function more like desktop applications. You’ve probably come across it already in applications like Gmail or Google Maps.
• Tagging and folksonomies – instead of having a person or team define a hierarchical structure, folksonomies rely on community tagging, where any visitor can input their own categorization scheme, such as in Flickr and Digg.
• Social software – enabling users to make connections with similarly-minded users to influence how a web application works for them
• Relying on collective intelligence – Wikipedia is the prime example of this – an encyclopedia made up exclusively of content provided by users, any users
• Small releases, often – instead of the typical Microsoft major release cycle occurring every couple of years, more agile companies are constantly releasing updates. 37signals is a prime example of a company founded on this model.
• RSS and blogs – these represent the ability to get just what you want from the web, when you want it, and the proliferation and appreciation of the wisdom of crowds.

Trying to make a little sense of it all

As a concept, Web 2.0 fails. It just doesn’t make clear sense. The most practical way to think of it is:

"Web 2.0 is all the really interesting stuff that’s been happening on the Web over the last couple years."

But the enthusiasm behind Web 2.0 is genuine. And the developments that it’s trying to unify are important. Over the next couple newsletters we'll explore these developments in more depth, and we’ll try to identify how they might relate to what you’re doing on your web site.

We just won’t call them Web 2.0.