Sam Ruby: Agile Web 2.0 Development

Tim Bray doesn't like the buzzwordy-ness of the Web 2.0 label, but Tim O'Reilly does.

Sam Ruby does a great (if somewhat technical) review of the validity of the term:

Web[0] is exemplified by static home pages, published in
broadcast mode.  Many weblogs today continue to operate in
this fashion.

Web[1] is exemplified by e-commerce shopping carts, enabling two
way interaction between business and consumers.  Comments and
Trackbacks are in this category.

Web[2] is characterized by action-at-a-distance interactions and
ad hoc integration.  By my putting a link
here, your page rank is
changed there.  A book I
purchase today affects Amazon’s recommendations tomorrow.

I consider

AJAX to be “merely” an optimization of an
implementation detail of Web 1.0.  On the other hand, I
consider the integration of
Google and craigslist to
be very Web 2.0.  As is
GreaseMonkey,
Technorati, and even
e-bay and
Wikipedia.

Sam Ruby: Agile Web 2.0 Development

We need something to describe the combination of new activities we're seeing, and to put things in one category or another. Does this website or technique exemplify Web 1.0 or Web 2.0 thinking? We don't have all the rules down yet, but we know when we see it.