Does Web 2.0 Exist?

Web founder Tim Berners-Lee has just weighed in on the Web 2.0 question in a podcast interview for IBM, and he's not big on the term. In fact, Sir Tim has some really big doubts that Web 2.0 is different from Web 1.0 at all. the biggest problems for Web 2.0 are excessive hype and the lack of a real definition.Most analysts define Web 2.0 in terms of the tools that foster online participation in content creation and social interaction. This tends only to produce lists of new software applications or claims of ‘we are the web’, ‘web 2.0 is people’ etc etc. the average user to organize online information in such a way that is useful, meaningful and personally relevant. They help people navigate the virtual world and find what they are looking for. 

Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works (RSS) allows you to witness the activities of others but cannot communicate back. This creates a ‘social presence’ – the understanding that although you do not directly interact, there are always other people surfing with you. It allows you to tailor search to what you need; avoiding spam and unwanted
advertising. 

One critic said "I am assuming that all this really started when the term "Web 2.0" was coined. It is a marketing term for something that does not exist and has not even been defined all that clearly. It is hype. It has little, if anything to do with technology. It represents misguided thinking. The Web evolves, yet using some numbering would suggest that we are talking about a major new version. Good for marketing, I guess. Makes people who don't have a clue go "oh, I have to get me some of that new Web 2.0".

• Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, dismissed the Web 2.0 concept. He called Web 2.0 "a piece of jargon" and said "nobody even knows what it means" in an IBM developer Works interview. Berners-Lee said the World Wide Web was always a way for people to connect with one another and that there was nothing new or revolutionary about the Web 2.0 philosophy.

• Russell Shaw, a telecommunications author, posted a blog entry in 2005 in which he said that the term was nothing more than a marketing slogan. He wrote that while the individual elements of Web 2.0 actually do exist, they can't be grouped together under a single term or concept. Shaw claimed that the concepts in Web 2.0 were too broad, and that many of its goals conflicted with each other.

• Jay Fienberg, an information architecture specialist, called Web 2.0 a "retrospective concept." He said that only a year after O'Reilly introduced the term, it had become a marketing gimmick. Fienberg pointed out that many popular technology businesses adopted the term to make their companies sound innovative. This in turn watered down any meaning the original name may have had.

• Internet essayist Paul Graham originally dismissed Web 2.0 as a buzz word but later recanted after O'Reilly published his take on what Web 2.0 means. Even then, Graham said the term originally had no meaning but became more defined as people looked deeper into the current state of the Web. His perspective is that Web 2.0 refers to the best way to use the World Wide Web -- through real connections between users and higher levels of interactivity.

• Andrew Keen, an Internet critic, has a distinctively negative point of view about Web 2.0. He calls the phenomenon of self-publishing and blogging "digital narcissism". Keen's argument isn't about whether or not Web 2.0 exists; it's about whether or not Web 2.0 is even a good idea. He points out that while people are writing and uploading lots of information on the Web, no one is taking the time to read it all. As a result, institutions that are dedicated to creating quality content are suffering because everyone is too busy posting his or her opinions to search out good information.