The technology trade press has been raving about “Web 2.0” as the next big thing. But what is it really?
It turns out that Web 2.0 is a term coined by O’Reilly Media CEO Tim O’Reilly, a computer book publisher. About 18 months ago, O’Reilly was at a conference and was trying to describe the differences between the web technologies of five years ago versus what is now available. He casually described the new world of blogs, wikis, and open source as the next wave and christened it Web 2.0. That is all it took.
Since his “top of mind introduction” of the term Web 2.0, it has had a viral marketing adoption by all the technology geeks and media pundits. The term is now posted everywhere including on websites, as product names, and as a frequent topic at conferences. It seems that a light switch was turned on and Web 2.0 has now become gospel: a must have feature or tag line for all technology offerings, advertisements, and conversations.
I visited his website (http://www.oreillynet.com) and found the following chart that hopes describe what he meant:
Old Term……………………………………….New Term
Web 1.0………………………………………………Web 2.0
DoubleClick…………………………………………Google AdSense
Ofoto……………………………………………………Flickr
Akamai…………………………………………………BitTorrent
MP3.com………………………………………………Napster
Britannica Online…………………………………Wikipedia
Personal websites………………………………Blogging
evite…………………………………………………….Upcoming.org and EVDB
Domain name speculation………………….Search engine optimization
Page views………………………………………….Cost per click
Screen scraping………………………………….Web services
Publishing……………………………………………Participation
Content management systems…………Wikis
Directories…………………………………………..Tagging
Stickiness…………………………………………….Syndication
OK, I get it. But, all this hoopla is just a clever term for the continued evolution of internet technologies. No more and no less.
And guess what? I just read an article about Web 3.0! Same BS, different name.
John Bradley Jackson
© Copyright 2006 All rights reserved.
My new book “First, Best, or Different” is now available at www.firstbestordifferent.com!
Please buy my book!
Prof. Jackson
Congratulations on the completion of your book, I’ll be sure to buy one I’m sure I’ll need it.
I agree with your blog on the subject with old phrases being coined into new phrases, however web 2.0 and web 1.0 should be fairly different.
Web 2.0 focuses highly on visitor/customer driven content such as blogs, wikis, viral marketing. While web 1.0 was driven by the businesses, with sites created for visitors but without visitor opinions. We gave the visitors what we thought they wanted. Since web 2.0 it makes marketing so much easier, because we let the customers tell us what they want and how they want to do it. Every marketers dream!
Of course, who knows how long web 2.0 will go on, indefinitely? or just a phase as some aspects, like the superbowl ads should be left to the professionals… your thoughts?
Lawrence,
Agreed.
I just tire of the herd behavior about the next “new thing”.
I am big believer in blogs, wikis, and viral marketing…they allow for community and better solutions.
JBJ