Nov 12 2005
what is web 2.0?
There has been lot of discussion about what Web 2.0 really is, so we thought we’d use the power of Web 2.0 itself to come up with the answer, and here it is:
42.
Just kidding. What we actually did was take a look at all the tag data going back to February 2004 (the month of the first use of Web 2.0 as a tag on del.icio.us), and analyzed all the bookmarks and tags related to the term. We can report that as of October 31, 2005 there have been over 230,000 separate bookmarks and over 7,000 unique tags associated with the term “Web 2.0” by del.icio.us users. So for this exercise, we lopped off the really long tail and normalized some similar terms (e.g. combining blog, blogs, and blogging), and came up with this snapshot of what Web 2.0 REALLY is – at least according to del.icio.us users’ most popular tags through the end of October 2005:
| ajax | 9.9% |
| blog | 6.1% |
| social | 4.2% |
| tools | 4.1% |
| software | 3.3% |
| tagging | 3.3% |
| javascript | 2.8% |
| internet | 2.6% |
| programming | 2.5% |
| rss | 2.5% |
Other notable tags included rubyonrails (1.8%), del.icio.us (1.6%), folksonomy (1.4%), community (1.1%), wiki (.9%), flickr (.8%), free (.7%), trends (.6%), flock (.4%) and googlemaps (.3%).
So there you have it - interesting, but it still seems to fall short of a definitive answer. Maybe the blinding flash of the obvious is that Web 2.0 is best defined as arguing about what Web 2.0 is really about.
Chris Fralic · chrisfralic Tags: chatter bookmark this
35 Comments
Kossatsch | Nov 13 2005 at 9:40 am
What tag did you look for? Web2.0, web_2.0, web-2.0 or even all of them?
YanivG | Nov 13 2005 at 11:18 am
Scary enough, actually 42 is Google. Full details here - http://yanivg.blogspot.com/2005/11/answer-to-life-universe-and-everything.html.
martin lindner | Nov 13 2005 at 11:32 am
in fact, this is very near to “42″. a bit disappointing. but it became obvious before that people are using always the most obvious and less meaningful tags. tagging is an art, it seems, and average common sense is not too helpful. so it will come down to find more sophisticated analyzing structures, tag-combinations or such, maybe with an “avoid obvious” button …
Alex Barnett | Nov 13 2005 at 12:56 pm
“Web 2.0 is best defined as arguing about what Web 2.0 is really about.”
Classic ;-)
Interesting that ‘API’ or ‘APIs’ didn’t make the cut.
griffin | Nov 13 2005 at 6:20 pm
I did a fairly exhaustive search for a definition myself, that lasted, curiously enough, for 42 minutes which may not seem like a lot of time but it was internet minutes so like three hours in real-clock time.
My conclusion, I didn’t come to one, much like everyone else but I felt the need to say something after spewing garbage for 300 words or more so said something like, ahem, err, web 2.0 is, ah, Web 2.0 is an interactive internet experience, sounds good, that, ah, unites me with a global community and similar micro-communities, micro’s good, to provide a user friendly, fun, creative, and, ah, growth fostering experience. Or not.
Ken Yarmosh | Nov 13 2005 at 8:25 pm
I did some similar analysis a while back. While not a formal definition, it’s interesting to understand how the community is thinking about “Web 2.0″.
Boris | Nov 13 2005 at 9:47 pm
Neato, but, and forgive me for being cynical about it, all this shows is that there is/was a buzz, a ton of hype and a whooole lot of ignorance…
C’mon… Web 2.0 is AJAX? please… (yes ajax allows one to do intertwingly “web 2.0 stuff”, but it is just an actuator, not the thing itself. ;)
Boris | Nov 13 2005 at 9:49 pm
just as I hit post…
It’s all about standards. If no one reached concensus *and* provided access via if not fully standardized then at least well documented APIs, all the AJAX and RubyOnRails in the world wouldn’t give you a damn thing. ;)
MarcoGomes | Nov 13 2005 at 10:29 pm
42 is the final answer, the rest of the post (after 42) should not exist.
AJAX? Social? Tagging? Not of this, 42 is the answer!
Michael McDerment | Nov 14 2005 at 10:46 am
I’m pretty sure my parents/girlfriend/non-tech friends etc would NOT define web 2.0 using technologies or standards (sorry for the double negative)….they’d do it by describing benefits…things like “easy to DO X online”. Time will tell I guess, but in the mean time - who really cares what it means? Not me. I did take a stab at helping entrepreneurs make the most of the trend. If you are playing in Web 2.0 or thinking about it, you may want to give this a read:
http://www.michaelmcderment.com/article/Web2ChroniclesVolumeOne.html
(if you are Web 2.0 saavy already and want to get to the meat of the doc, you should know it gets more interesting about 1/3 the way down at “Route #2 - Solving a Small Problem”)
Boris | Nov 14 2005 at 8:11 pm
Web 2.0 is just the noise before you hit a more stable Web 3.1 .
Really, many of us have seen all of this trying to define a line in the sand before the next crashing wave. Amongst all of your best guesses, bit torrent is a clue to the ultimate decentralization of things on the internet. Google with its central model will be gone in 10 years starting in 3 to 5 yrs. Google is a big disappointment for any first time computer user who expect so much more…
- Boris
Chris Jackson | Nov 17 2005 at 12:13 pm
I have a nice biblical answer / similarity on my blog http://2advent.com/ViewComments.php?blogid=103.
Jos Schuurmans | Nov 22 2005 at 6:40 am
…and while the blinding flash of the obvious may be that Web 2.0 is best defined as arguing about what Web 2.0 is really about, Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0) offers a very decent place to start constructing a definition.
Jos Schuurmans | Nov 22 2005 at 6:43 am
…and while the blinding flash of the obvious may be that Web 2.0 is best defined as arguing about what Web 2.0 is really about, Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0 offers a very decent place to start constructing a definition.
(not so neat that the “)” was included in version 1 of this comment)
James | Nov 24 2005 at 10:59 am
It is so much simpler to just use the One True Official Web 2.0 Validator to scientifically remove all doubt as to a site’s Web two-ohness. http://web2.0validator.com/
Julien Coquet | Nov 28 2005 at 3:55 am
Tim O’Reilly has a fairly extensive definition of Web 2.0 at http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html
Andy | Nov 29 2005 at 4:40 pm
Web 2.0 is broadband. All the bells and whistles and pastel colours all depend on getting into people’s homes and offices at a meaningful speed.
arsblog | Dec 9 2005 at 4:05 pm
i’m holding out for web95, everyone knows that’ll have the best balance of features and stability through the next major upgrade and at least two .version extensions
Ean Jackson | Dec 11 2005 at 5:53 pm
I was teaching an MBA class in eBusiness last spring. During a discussion about web 2.0, I was asked to define Web 2.0. Couldn’t do it. It’s an interesting challenge, though.
Amanuel - Intentional Web Initiative | Dec 11 2005 at 7:27 pm
I have a simpler answer. Web 2.0 is an evolution. When looking at the big picture, there is nothing more to it. It is an evolution of the content creation, and publication aspects of the web. While that is great, it is no revolution.
I have proposed that the next big thing which really comes out of this evolution is the Intentional Web. A focus on improving the content consumption end of the web now that we have very dynamic and malleable content.
– Amanuel
Daniel | Dec 11 2005 at 10:07 pm
Interesting — a bunch of those things I do consider a part of Web 2.0 and together their traits can be considered the definition of Web 2.0, but perhaps not quite.
Juha Haataja | Dec 12 2005 at 3:27 am
Not bad - in fact one of the most useful explanations and definitions of web 2.0 I have seen so far!
Paul Mitchell | Dec 12 2005 at 1:13 pm
What’s the matter with Web 1.0?
Paul Mitchell | Dec 12 2005 at 1:14 pm
What’s the matter with Web 1.0?
Bro | Jan 3 2006 at 8:10 am
What’s the matter with Web 1.0?
hellen song | Jan 6 2006 at 4:55 am
can anyone explain what is the world? that is it. that says what web2.0 is. web2.0 is the only tech which has the world capacity.
u24 | Jan 6 2006 at 11:21 am
really, I’d call it web1.0 - everything before was just a big beta test.
if we’re going to call (whatever it is) web2.0, then should frames and rollovers be called web1.0? it’s just marketing hyper wrapped around a few technologies that have been around for ages but once recently got noticed by the mainstream.
oh, and please, web 42.0?
Manoj | Jan 9 2006 at 5:05 am
Just got to know about delicious today… liking to know more deeper. and how can it be useful to me and my company.
Rashmi's Blog&hellip | Jan 18 2006 at 11:53 am
A social analysis of tagging
(or how tagging transforms the solitary browsing experience into a social one) In a previous essay, I wrote about the cognitive aspect of tagging - describing how people tag, and why they find it easy. There is another, equally…
Rashmi's Blog&hellip | Jan 18 2006 at 11:59 am
A social analysis of tagging
(or how tagging transforms the solitary browsing experience into a social one) In a previous essay, I wrote about the cognitive aspect of tagging - describing how people tag, and why they find it easy. There is another, equally…
Nina | Jan 23 2006 at 5:33 pm
‘m pretty sure my parents/girlfriend/non-tech friends etc would NOT define web 2.0 using technologies or standards (sorry for the double negative)….they’d do it by describing benefits…things like “easy to DO X online”. Time will tell I guess, but in the mean time - who really cares what it means? Not me. I did take a stab at helping entrepreneurs make the most of the trend. If you are playing in Web 2.0 or thinking about it, you may want to give this a read: http://www.michaelmcderment.com/article/Web2ChroniclesVolumeOne.html (if you are Web 2.0 saavy already and want to get to the meat of the doc, you should know it gets more interesting about 1/3 the way down at “Route #2 - Solving a Small Problem”)
Bill | Feb 20 2006 at 6:36 pm
I don’t know what web 2.0 is specifically, but in the words of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart “I know it when I see it.” Of course he was talking about porn… hey! We’re talking about porn, aren’t we? In any case, doesn’t is have a lot to do with the “new” (its actually more than 20 years old) expanded 64 bit ip scheme?
martium | Mar 6 2006 at 12:57 am
James - love that Web 2.0 validator (http://web2.0validator.com/). I got more out of that than any of the other comments on this page.
Search Engines WEB | Jun 7 2006 at 4:26 pm
Since this has been written, there have been new addtions to Web 2.0 hierachy
A major one is COMET - which is Server side push (RSS) AJAX
pb | Jul 11 2006 at 10:52 am
The internet today is so different from the internet a few years ago, and will be hugely different a few years from now, and the differences are in so many different areas that in many ways can be unrelated…. basically, web 2.0 is marketing spin, just like AJAX is … marketing spin … it’s just a trendy way of saying “hey, we’re doing different things on the internet today than we were a while back”.