Tim Bray in a post entitled What Matters: “Every day that goes by I believe more and more that the only important new thing is that the Net is read-write. Everything that matters follows from that.”
I came across this the same day that I noticed a newround of ‘defining web 2.0’ posts popping up (it’s a never-ending cycle). I came to the realization at the end of last year that web 2.0 is an umbrella term, a catch-phrase for this era of the Web. It can – and does – mean anything that people say it means. e.g. take this snippet from an interesting MercuryNews interview with VC Peter Thiel:
“Q What’s different from Web 1.0?
A Those companies that are successful are incredibly successful, and a lot of the other companies have no value at all. That’s the thing that is so dizzying about Web 2.0.”
OK, chalk that up as definition # 53,651 (to pick a big number out of the air).
<High Horse> But I have no problem with all these definitions anymore. What matters is that the current era of the Web is vibrant and making a difference to real people. In the end, that means more to me than trying to define what in essence is just a catch-phrase – although admittedly a very handy one with many uses. </High Horse>
Photo: Tantek
Originally published on ReadWriteWeb (archived copy)