Defining Web 2.0

I was recently sitting in a presentation at a conference about the latest offerings from Myspodblog. This presentation, not unlike several others I've heard, was being given by Dan. (Obviously Myspodblog is ficticious and AFAIK I haven't actually seen any presentations given by anyone named Dan.) Dan was busy highlighting the latest Myspodblog offerings when he said, "Myspodblog Pro Developer is the Web 2.0 product. It allows you to both develop and consume Web 2.0 applications." Wow! That's great. I guess I'll have to check out the latest version of Myspodblog Pro Developer as it will allow me to jump on the Web 2.0 bandwagon. Hmm. But I wonder. Just what is it that Myspodblog does?

This short story, which I've actually lived in slightly modified versions more than once or twice now, highlights a key problem with the term "Web 2.0" - ambiguity. (Actually, before I go any further I feel I need to clarify that I generally like what's associated with Web 2.0. It's the term itself with which I have a problem.) Web 2.0 has come to be used as a catchall term for everything and anything related to the cool Web. It means online collaboration and social computing, it means multimedia applications, it means improved Web based UIs, it means new ways of connecting applications, it means technologies such as AJAX and Flash, and it means taking traditional desktop apps online. Web 2.0 encompasses an extremely large and diverse set of technologies including blogging, sharing through sites like del.icio.us and Facebook, youtube, mashups, Dojo, Rico and Ruby on Rails, and Writely and online spreadsheet apps. Web 2.0 generally means whatever the person saying or writing the term says that it means as there is no accepted, concrete definition.

Now, you may be saying so what? All my story above shows is that marketing doesn't get it. Well, if the problem was just one of marketing I would just leave it at that. The problem I've found is that with the term Web 2.0 in particular, the problem of using a term without a specific meaning has spread from marketing to the tech crowd. Specifically, I've heard this term used without context in technical presentations and read it used in the same way in technical articles. (I purposefully have not linked to any articles or presentations as I do not want to call out anyone specific.)

I'm not the only one thinking this way and others are actually working to resolve this ambiguity. The Wikipedia entry for Web 2.0 covers a lot of the criticism of the term and the contributors to this page have done a fairly good job at providing a definition for the term that covers its breadth. Tim O'Reilly also acknowleged this problem in an article he posted last year (see What Is Web 2.0) in which he discusses the coining of the term, the differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0, and provides seven core competencies that Web 2.0 companies should display. I think both the Wikipedia entry and Tim's post are good reading so I'm going to let them speak for themselves rather than attempt to summarize them here.

My point with this post was not to define the term Web 2.0. I doubt that I can create a definition that will adequately cover everything I've said above and appease the crowd at large in a single blog post. My point is that you should know what you want to say about Web 2.0 before you say it and define Web 2.0 for your context when you use it. Put simply, think before you speak.