What does it mean to us, well, what does it (or should it) mean to you?
Web 2.0 represents a new shift in the usefulness of the internet and internet applications. It is not revolutionary moment in time marked by a particular event or product launch; rather it is an evolution marked more by the dogged efforts of many individuals and groups across the internet to make it BETTER.
Don't get me wrong web 1.0 is still around and will be for much longer, it's just that web 2.0 is finally hitting the mainstream.
Most mainstream users won't know they are now 'web 2.0 enabled', they will just eventually figure out that what they are doing is now 'easier, faster, better' or that some new functionality is now available, some creative new idea has finally landed.
Now what exactly does 'better' mean? well it has meant different things to different contributors, not just cool new technology for technologies sake - AJAX, RUBY, SOAP/REST etc. but what the cool new technology can do.
To some it has meant a drive to provide a better user experience, an interactive one, whereby readers become contributors and collaborators.
Think of the advent of blogging as the perfect example, not only has blogging brought publication to the masses, it has also made online communication a public two-way process - the essence of blogging is that it allows a community of readers to add feedback, insights, comments, praise and even criticism to the writings of others in their community. It is a collective validation and growth of information that in a web 1.0 world would have been entirely one way, from the writer to the masses.
It is not just the advent of blogs that makes it Web 2.0, it is the way we now use blogs and their prevalence; it is the fact that many now aggregate blogs and then search them to get a 'pulse' on any given topic, we gain insight and understanding of how an entire community or population feels at any given moment about just about anything and then contribute our own insights.
The collective reaction to each new additional insight acts like an 'arbiter' reflecting the current temperament of the entire community! go to boardtracker.com and search any topic, you will find any number of discussions going on across a universe of discussion groups.
To others, it has meant making the user experience of Internet applications better, making internet applications work by the same rules as non-internet applications.
Have a look at Google Maps, a prototypical example of an 'AJAX' implementation - a programming method combining several pre-existing programming technologies into one method - that allows users to interact with a webpage, make changes to the content, all without any screen refreshes (click and drag the map - the map moves!).
In a web 1.0 world, you would have clicked an area of the map, the screen would have refreshed as your request for an updated view of the map was processed and a few moments later a new 'map' would be displayed showing the new map location.
Many of you are probably saying, 'yeah, so what?' The 'so what' is that we are finally at a place when even internet applications can work the way they should have, the way we expect them to (thus, 'yeah so what?' - we have always expected them to act this way!).
To others still it has meant making available and using information machine to machine instead of between people and machines.
In a Web 1.0 world, information owners are publishers of data - they make information available to real people - think of an online news provider (sample.com) or an online map provider mapquest.com - people visit these websites and look up information which is displayed to them in a webpage.
In a Web 2.0 world these same information owners are not only publishers, but are now also sharers of information, allowing other software programs to extract data without any user interaction. Think of an online rental housing directory that collects, stores and displays information about rental property that pulls map information from an online map provider and displays street level maps of the rental property as the viewer looks at each property listing. Have a look at rentalmonster.com for a real-life example of just this!
Today, these are known as 'mash-ups' - there are countless opportunities for 'mashups' - most at the start will involve probably only one 'third party' data source - look at rentalmonster.com for an excellent example - but in the future there will be new and interesting products created by combining multiple disparate data sets into a single application.
In essence owners of data are relinquishing ownership to some degree in HOW their information is being used, allowing for ever more useful applications to be created (in some cases, in a not so 'helpful' way, look at the case of public figure A having their personal residence easily identifiable on a map)
Some have gone so far as to suggest that web 2.0 has meant it is time for a Business 2.0 - a new model of business to accommodate a web 2.0 world - see Early Stage VC of Peter Rip, Managing Director of Leapfrog Ventures, for a more detailed discussion.
In summary, Web 2.0 is an evolution, not a revolution, it is about making the existing internet world work better, not so much different, just better. It is evolutionary, because most users won't even know that the transition has happened, it will just somehow seem easier, simpler, faster and better!
