You know when Gartner and IBM pontificate on Web 2.0, that we've reached a point where the term has become generally acceptable - mainstream even. Well-known research firm Gartner has drunk the kool aid:
"While Web 2.0 offers many new opportunities for companies to grow their business, few enterprises realize how to implement the full range of capabilities to succeed. By 2008, the majority of Global 1000 companies will quickly adopt several technology-related aspects of Web 2.0, but will be slow to adopt the aspects of Web 2.0 that have a social dimension, and the result will be a slow impact on business, according to Gartner, Inc."
...and David Boloker, CTO of IBM’s emerging internet technology software group, is also bullish on Web 2.0:
“Web 2.0 is a new class of affordable apps [that] are becoming do-able, delivering instantaneous value such as mash-ups and programmable web,” says Boloker. “Web 2.0 is comprised of everything from Ajax to social software, for example blogs and wikis; to a focus on simplicity, to microformats.”
I even have a personal example of how Web 2.0 has gone mainstream. I was at a New Zealand government strategy workgroup today and the term 'Web 2.0' was used profusely (and appropriately, I might add).
Now -- I've had an interesting and also bumpy ride with the term. I was the first blogger to focus on Web 2.0, starting back in 2004 soon after O'Reilly Media coined it. Indeed you could say that my blog has always been about Web 2.0 (read/write web, two-way web, etc). During 2005 my blog became very popular because of its focus on Web 2.0. My blog was the resource for Web 2.0, because I was one of the only blogs at that time writing about it. This was back in the days when Mike Arrington of Techcrunch fame kidded me about how many RSS subscribers I had - and that he'd some day overtake me. Which of course he did, I think starting from the moment I stepped into the Techcrunch ranch in Atherton in October 2005 :-) Now of course Techcrunch is number 1 amongst not only web 2.0 blogs, but arguably tech blogs in general - and deservedly so IMO. Techcrunch has simply become a must-read resource. Susan Mernit accurately described Techcrunch recently as the leading daily covering web 2.0 and startup land.
So what has happened to Read/WriteWeb? Well I've still been growing at a decent clip and I've gotten a lot of work via my blog. I've nothing to complain about reputation-wise. But in terms of Web 2.0, quite simply I got engulfed by the hype. You know that popular tech cliche: let a thousand flowers bloom? Well that describes Web 2.0 definitions by the end of 2005 - thousands of definitions "bloomed" in the second half of 2005, with the help of a lot of fertilizer from hypesters and naysayers alike.
Then on 18 December 2005 I made the infamous declaration that "Web 2.0 is dead. R.I.P.". Ever wish you hadn't pressed the 'publish' button? Well that was one of those times for me. Boy did that post cause some ructions. I tried to explain myself more coherently in a follow-up post - that defining Web 2.0 had become too distracting and I just wanted to focus on the the technologies and products. But no amount of explanation could get around that sensationalistic header I used.
So what's 2006 brought? Believe it or not, I think it's brought acceptance of the term 'Web 2.0'. That's actually caught me by surprise - I got it wrong. Web 2.0 hasn't died, it's actually morphed into a mainstream term that Gartner and IBM use. I still think it means everything -- and nothing -- at the same time. But in a weird way this has meant Web 2.0 has become the kind of umbrella term and catch-phrase that people identify with. From the 100 or so new and varied definitions of Web 2.0 you read every week (increasingly from mainstream media), to Dion Hinchcliffe's relentless pursuit of defining Web 2.0 for the enterprise, to VCs using the term to connote 'the period after dot com', to TechCrunch profiling the products of Web 2.0 and itself becoming a Web 2.0 success story, to Microsoft adopting Web 2.0 but re-naming it to The Live Web, to Yahoo continuing to put theory into practice and not naming it anything, to Google just doing it's own thing and being damn successful, to Valleywag rising up and creating a hilarious snark blog about the current boom (well, it'll be hilarious up to the point I get linked to), to 'old school' techs like Marc Canter and Dave Winer thriving in this new era, to Gen Y kids creating multi-million dollar businesses like YouTube and Facebook, yada yada.
And now Gartner and IBM 'get it'. Get what? Web 2.0 of course. But what does it mean? Everything and anything you want. You mean the architecture of participation? Sure I do. What about Ajax? Yeh, why not. What about Flash then? I guess... Does Web 2.0 mean social networking? You betcha. APIs? Dude... Collective intelligence? Of course. Perpetual betas? Now you're talking...
Look: Web 2.0 is made of people (heh).
So I've come to terms with Web 2.0. Well I had to, because I sure as heck am not going to let Gartner and IBM get all the credit! :-)
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this is so awesome.
Posted by: michael arrington | May 22, 2006 5:21 AM"Everything and nothing" - I love it! Thanks Richard - you've started off my work week right.
Posted by: Easton Ellsworth | May 22, 2006 6:24 AMMade of people.
Posted by: Ross Mayfield | May 22, 2006 6:41 AMHey, Richard. Great to see your post!
For a long time I, too, have thought about dropping the name "web 2.0" on my blog myself, but the term totally caught up in Korea, too. So I decided to leave it there. I mean, I could've brought the ontological argument about the meaning of the concept of "2.0" for anyone I had to argue with, but in the end, I simply couldn't find a single term that can represent this huge tectonic shift as cleary as "web 2.0".
Welcome back, there :)
Posted by: Danny Kim | May 22, 2006 7:26 AMJust a thought: Maybe 'web 2.0' is like 'democracy' or 'freedom'. Everyone has differtent definitions for those also, yet people care about them strongly.
The intersection of different definitions can be hard to find. Maybe some ideals are best to remain fuzzy.
Posted by: Meryn | May 22, 2006 7:50 AMI think web-born people have never felt to 'own' the Web, like they feel to own 'web 2.0', to be part of it. Web 2.0 is about people actually wanting to be part of the web, support it, not only use it and consume it. That needed a new term, because almost noone can say they have helped build 'the web'.
Posted by: Meryn | May 22, 2006 7:55 AMThere is no such thing as web 2.0....
If we look at google a few years ago they had a dance every month and radical changes would happen in rankings, this was like releasing a new version of software. These days google works by constantly releasing changes and you can't really tell when something new has taken effect. The web is much like that these days, its the eternal beta/changes being made to sites. The sites that need social aspects/ajax will evolve to use them at a fast pace, but many sites will simply stick with what they have as it works just fine.
Posted by: Markus | May 22, 2006 12:37 PMBut Markus, Gartner and IBM say there is a Web 2.0. So it must be so.
Posted by: Richard MacManus | May 22, 2006 1:14 PMMarkus, I think 2.0 should not be thought of as a second version, but more as a second era. And maybe that era will consists of eternal betas. The notion that an application is never finished suits the web paradigm quite well.
Posted by: Meryn | May 22, 2006 2:35 PMI agree whole heartedly with both the words and the sentiment. I can see the phrase "Web 2.0" going the way of "EIS" and even "BI", into the history books, something like this:
* taken on by the biggies (Gartner/IBM have started)
* used by marketting depts to promote their solutions with tacked on RSS
* organisations/corporates clammer for the latetst
* discover it's not the panacea to all
* the phrase becomes "old" and slightly "stale" and so "2007/8"
* by then a new phrase will have been used by t"hose that know" (that's you, me and all your wonderful subscribers)
* back to the top of this list
The key is to invent the new phrase and be known as the "Father of " - my take is "Social "
(ooh, I am such a cynic ...)
Posted by: Mike Riversdale | May 22, 2006 3:28 PMNo! "Soylent Green is people!"
Posted by: Murray | May 22, 2006 7:32 PMhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green
Gartner: 'but will be slow to adopt the aspects of Web 2.0 that have a social dimension, and the result will be a slow impact on business' so...accepts the term but throws a bucket of cold water over the social aspects - sounds about right.
Posted by: Dennis Howlett | May 22, 2006 8:12 PMWell but of course the term "web 2.0" will end up seen as an old overused term (some are feeling that already anyways). We can't be praising we're living in "web 2.0" age for the next 20 years. We can only hope that 20 years from now the term "web" - and the web itself - is a thing of the past, and a newer, better technology is in place to do the things that just can't be done in the web (2.0 or 6.0) today.
Posted by: RBA | May 22, 2006 11:15 PMWhat I'm feeling a bit tired is to hear yet one more definition of what web 2.0 means. I mean, if you're talking to non early-adopters that's fine, but when people's preaching to the choir - as it usually happens - sometimes I feel like saying "ok, enough already, we all get it" :-)
I'm reading the Pragmatic Ajax book this week, and it has a good take on things: in the very near future, we won't see this Ajax or Web 2.0 stuff as new or special or difficult, but just "the way the web works." I think that date's arriving a lot sooner than we thought it would back in 2005.
Posted by: Andrew | May 24, 2006 12:26 PMThis is a great post. Thought your quotes on Crunchnotes are perfect. Web 2.0 has a life of its own now and the masses are unfortunately associating it with the social impact and of course the public is loving the hype. I fear that this will have an interesting effect on funding, acquisitions, and ugh, the stock market. Anxious for the new line up of "realworld" Web 2.1.1 applications and solutions...
Posted by: Brian Solis | May 25, 2006 6:40 AMWell, you better learn to unlove it sharpish, because Mr O'Reilly now claims to own all of it http://www.tomrafteryit.net/oreilly-trademarks-web-20-
Posted by: Ivan Pope | May 25, 2006 1:13 PMand-sets-lawyers-on-itcork/
Richard,
I expect Web 2.0 (just because as you say it means "everything and anything you want") to start branching in Web 2.0 for SMB, Web 2.0 for consumer, Web 2.0 for enterprise, etc. At this point I expect to see better classification of what that means and eventually the web 2.0 acronym will drop (sorry Tim) and will become just business as usual, based on some of the web 2.0 concepts.
And hey -- at this point you can be the king of media-related Web 2.0 (or whatever will be the buzz-word for that then).
Posted by: Lenkov | May 25, 2006 7:30 PM