I think it's a buzzword.
But at the same time, there's the notion of the nature of the web changing significantly - especially when you look at the list that you find on O'Reilly. It definitely signals a change in the way online applications are built and presented (AJAX comes to mind), but I don't think you can call it "Web 2.0" - because how do you define where a new version of something like the web starts and ends? You can't - because the web evolves, like a living thing and you never read anything in a biology book about "Elephants 1.0beta" (that's wooly mammoths, for you laymen
).
It's just a buzzword, but there's a grain of truth inside.
Interesting quote...and it's
from a blog!
Quote:
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My main critique here is: "web 2.0" is now a purely retrospective concept. It has little to do with a "next generation" future, other than in the sense that what has been popular in the recent past will likely continue to be so in the near future.
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The Era of Web 2.Over
And from Digital Web Magazine...something of a counterpoint...
Quote:
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Jay Fineberg has an interesting post over on iCite entitled The era of web 2.Over which goes into detail about Tim O'Reilly's recent essay about Web 2.0 and it's future. From Jay's point of view, the Web 2.0 discussion is now a "purely retrospective concept." This is true if you are paying attention to early adopters and trend setters. However, if you look at the vast majority of people using the Web it is not. For example in a recent study Forrester reported that only 6% of consumers currently use RSS. Contrast this with how many consumer sites might be using AJAX, blogs, or implementing folksonomies, well, you get quite a different perspective. For the majority of web users out there, Web 2.0 hasn't even hit yet.
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RSS is supposedly a "Web 2.0" concept. I don't use it. I tried once, I wanted to be hip, but I see very little use for it. You know what I do when I want to see if a site's been updated? I open my browser and click the bookmark.
There is one exception to my aversion to RSS. Google.com/ig is absolutely the best application of RSS I've ever seen. I pick a few sites - Wired, Slashdot, NYTimes, BBC - and feed those directly into the page, which is set as my homepage. So, when I open my browser, I take a look at what looks interesting. Nothing? Then I go to another site.