---
title: "Defining Web 2.0: the community way"
date: 2005-08-01
author: "Richard MacManus"
categories:
  - name: "ReadWriteWeb"
    url: "/category/readwriteweb.md"
tags:
  - name: "2005"
    url: "/tag/2005.md"
---

# Defining Web 2.0: the community way

Doc Searls grabs [the Web 2.0 meme](https://web.archive.org/web/20060315002933/http://doc.weblogs.com/2005/07/31#gettingPastWeb1x) by the horns and gives it a good shake. He’s posted [a thought-provoking piece](https://web.archive.org/web/20060315002933/http://www.itgarage.com/node/641) in which he frames Web 2.0 in the following way:

*“I propose a goal: Make Web 2.0 the best possible commons for supporting free markets **and** free culture.”*

I’m glad Doc has weighed in on the ongoing debate about what Web 2.0 is. So far we’ve had mainly techies and business folks pecking away at [the definition](https://web.archive.org/web/20060315002933/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0), but it hasn’t really been approached from a ‘social commons’ point of view. And who better to do that than Doc Searls.

Doc wrote his post in response to [one by Martin at Mediatope](https://web.archive.org/web/20060315002933/http://phaidon.philo.at/martin/archives/000298.html), who is creating a “a cumulative Web 2.0 definition” which he says is:

*“Mainly based on the [proto-definition work](https://web.archive.org/web/20060315002933/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/002645.php) of richard mcmanus’ writereadweb, still the most imprtant resource for Web 2.0. The [wikipedia-entry](https://web.archive.org/web/20060315002933/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/web_2.0) is also [valuable](https://web.archive.org/web/20060315002933/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/002690.php), despite being “disputed”.”*

Very nice of you to say so Martin, thank you!

btw the ‘Web as platform’ definition is a bit misunderstood, by some people who say – well, Web 1.0 was a platform too. So let me try and clarify a little. When I say Web 2.0 = ‘Web as platform’ – I’m referring to shared infrastructure and standards such as RSS, XML, API’s, structured microcontent, read/write web tools like blogging and podcasting, web services, etc. None of that was around in a usable state in the first edition of the Web (in the 90’s). You could put up a static or interactive website, do e-commerce transactions, participate in message boards and so forth. But you couldn’t **build on top** of any of that… it wasn’t a *true* platform. So when I use the word ‘platform’, I mean it must provide an infrastructure – and a network – for people to build on top of it. Build what? Communities, collaboration, communication, and (yes, don’t forget) commerce.

Perhaps ‘Web as OS’ is a more accurate description, but I prefer to use the word ‘platform’ because it’s not as techie and it can be expanded upon much better – e.g. as a business term, or to explain how for journalists the Web can be a platform for *new* news media. It’s not as effective to say “the Web is an OS” to non-geeks…

Anyway, I’m very glad to see the definition of Web 2.0 being discussed openly and from all sorts of angles. The [Wikipedia definition](https://web.archive.org/web/20060315002933/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/web_2.0) is still a (disputed) work in progress, but that’s OK. This is what we have weblogs and wikis for – to thrash out concepts in public and build on them 😉

*Originally published on ReadWriteWeb ([archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20020204040018/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/defining_web_20.php))*