Web 2.0 died in 2008
Posted by: Tudor Totolici on: 5 January, 2009
Defining Web 2.0 has been something like a fun parlor game for a few years now. There’s a long history of people trying to come up with a unified definition of Web 2.0. But like the elusive theory of everything in physics, a single, agreed-upon definition of what Web 2.0 really means has been hard to come by.
Probably the most widely accepted definition is Tim O’Reilly’s compact definition: “Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as a platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform.”
What we generally like to think of as Web 2.0 is “Upgrade your online image,” joining relevant online social communities like LinkedIn, and Twitter, blogging, and making sure your profiles at other social sites are clean of college party photos.
In reality, Web 2.0 has always been a marketing term. The confusion over Web 2.0 — whatever it means and however it is now being used — has been helpful. The discussion that those terms have prompted have been helpful, I think, in figuring out where the web is going and how we’re going to get there; and that’s what is important.
tudor.totolici 
5 January, 2009 at 10:32 am
I never believed in web 2.0, it’s impossible to categorize the huge evolution of web into one term, but I have to admit that was good PR for the industry.
Let’s see the next buzzword.