TheMarketingBackpack

According to Wikipedia, Web 2.0 is:

“World Wide Web technology, and web design, a second generation of web-based communities and hosted services such as social-networking sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies, which aim to facilitate creativity, collaboration, and sharing among users.”

Tim O’Reilly coined the term, giving it the definition:

“Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform. Chief among those rules is this: Build applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them…“

I think Web 2.0 is an opportunity for internet users to better determine and organize the types of services, entertainment, news, and products about which they wish to be informed. Web 2.0 is also a set of tools and applications for providers of this information to find the right audience who is interested in specifically what these providers can offer. It allows users to eliminate the “junk” and spam that clutters their inboxes and computer screens and it allows marketers to spend resources on reaching the people who want to hear from them, rather than wasting these resources on someone who would otherwise consider it a nuisance.

O’Reilly’s comment that the more people that use these applications the better they get, is interesting. This concept ties into two books that I am currently reading, and even possibly a third: The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki, We Are Smarter Than Me, by Barry Libert, Jon Spector, and others, and The Experience Economy by Joseph Pine II and James Gilmore.

I read The Experience Economy some time ago, but what I think is relevant is that it discusses the importance of the experience of the consumer/user in the success of a business. Web 2.0 is all about user experience – customizing personal pages, uploading pictures that friends can share and comment on, easily linking relevant events or information to a page or site. The more easily the user can interact with an online application the more fun they tend to have and the more interested they tend to be in maintaining it. I’m still reading The Wisdom of Crowds, but the gist of it talks to the fact that large groups of people can almost always come up with a better solution to certain types of problems and projects than one or two experts. There is an innate value in the diversity of opinion, knowledge, and experience of a crowd, and when this value is applied in certain cases to a decision-making process, the collective wisdom of the crowd makes the best possible decision. I’ve only just started We Are Smarter Than Me, so I can’t comment too much on it, but from the introduction it appears to study and analyze a similar concept that was discussed in The Wisdom of Crowds.

What are your opinions on Web 2.0? What does it mean to you? Is it a passing trend or something here to stay?