LAWTECH GURU BLOG by Jeff Beard

Web 2.0: What's All the Buzz About?

When I first heard the phrase, "Web 2.0", the first thing that entered my mind was, "Wow, how are they going to upgrade the Internet?" ;^) All kidding aside, it's already happening. I see it as mostly an evolutionary (as opposed to revolutionary) progression.

You can already see it in how search engines and various online resources have expanded, morphed, and matured. What really brought it alive for me was Tim O'Reilly's recent article, "What is Web 2.0". I'm a visual person, and his article presents a table of excellent examples:

Think about these for a moment, and think where your interaction and use of the Web has changed over the past five years. From this, it's easier to make sense of the visual Web 2.0 Meme Map, which expands on these examples.

For me, Web 2.0's context has crystallized into concepts such as:

• Blogs as participation and networking, not publishing (although blogging is still a form of publishing in the strictest sense)


• Consumer focus through syndication -- not keeping them captive via "stickiness" tricks and strategies


• Harnessing the power of collective intelligence, and radical trust as the foundation of collaboration (think wikis)


• The return of "Have it your way" for customer self-service and self-manipulation of data in a more convenient and meaningful way


• Tagging, not taxonomy (although I think this can be somewhat difficult to grasp at first)

It's not a short article, but it does a pretty good job of putting a face, via examples, of what Web 2.0 is, and perhaps just as importantly, what it isn't.