Apologies to Tim O'Reilly but maybe it's time to take "Web 2.0" out to pasture. To be blunt, Web 2.0 has out-lived its usefulness. It's stale, it's difficult to define (check out this Slate story and InfoWorld post) and fails to resonate once it moves into the mainstream. Nevertheless, it continues to be embraced by marketers, entrepreneurs, journalists and conference organizers because it is the widely-accepted phrase to describe how the Web has become a place to do things and share information. Newsweek made an attempt to rebrand "Web 2.0" in a recent cover story by proposing "Live Web" as an alternative, while "web 2.0" (owercase "w") has quietly started to be adopted recently. While "Live Web" is commendable, it is too simplistic. Personally, I like the idea of the "Dynamic Web" to describe how the Internet has become a place to do things - be it create content, collaborate, buy and sell, register your children for sports (which certainly beats lining in hours before the doors officially open), file invoices, etc. Dynamic Web works for me because it clearly makes a distinction with Web 1.0, which was mostly a static environment. This stage of the Web development deserves something better than Web 2.0 because there is a lot of exciting things happening for developers, entrepreneurs and Web users.
Update: Perhaps another sign that Web 2.0's time has come was Yahoo's April Fool's joke in which the company announced it had acquired the Web 2.0. "All of it. All the people, the round cornered boxes, the crazy business ideas, and pastel colors. So if you want to be Yahoo company, just create a Web 2.0 startup and you'll automatically be part of Yahoo's big family."
Update II: Dion Hincliffe has a lengthy Web 2.0 post that talks more to what's happening as opposed to whether the term "Web 2.0" still functional.
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Is It Time to Kill "Web 2.0"?
by
Mark Evans
on Sun 02 Apr 2006 09:31 AM EDT | Permanent Link
Comments
Re: Is It Time to Kill "Web 2.0"?
by
Vince Chan
on Sun 02 Apr 2006 11:26 AM EDT | Permanent Link
I'm no expert on "Dynamic Web", but what about calling it for what it is most useful for? Could we not suggest simply "Social Web"?
I feel capturing the web as an entity in itself that is alive and ever-changing is giving life to a medium, when the medium is simply a link from everyone of us to everyone out there. I realize that there are some w2 out there that do not involve socialization or user contribution, but that's what I see most beneficial and interesting about w2. I put forth the suggestion that those lone sites/applications are mere demonstrations of technologies used in w2 and are not really w2 in its treatment. Re: Re: Is It Time to Kill "Web 2.0"?
by
Anonymous
on Mon 10 Apr 2006 07:14 AM EDT | Permanent Link
How about webbity web? or even hot diggity dawg web??
Re: Is It Time to Kill "Web 2.0"?
I like Dynamic Web, but I kind of like Social Web too.
Re: Is It Time to Kill "Web 2.0"?
I like Dynamic, Live and Social for that matter. But how 'bout we stick with 2.0 through May 17th, anyway?
:-) - Stuart Re: Is It Time to Kill "Web 2.0"?
by
PK
on Sun 02 Apr 2006 11:48 PM EDT | Permanent Link
I almost agree with you...but the word "Dynamic" is always an opaque favorite. No one knows what dynamic really means....particularly those consumers with reading level below 8th grade....I think whatever term we choose to represent Web 2.0 must, by definition, be more readily understood by the masses.
Re: Re: Is It Time to Kill "Web 2.0"?
by
Vince Chan
on Mon 03 Apr 2006 11:56 PM EDT | Permanent Link
Good idea to have it be easily discernable by the masses. In that cases, how well does "web 2.0" describe this medium to the average joe? =)
Re: Is It Time to Kill "Web 2.0"?
by
Mark Kuznicki
on Wed 05 Apr 2006 09:39 AM EDT | Permanent Link
Social Web is already getting some traction: Shel and technorati.
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