What animal is web 2.0?

Web 2.0 still creates a buzz as noone has been able to come up with a standard definition about it. O'Reilly has delved into the web 2.0 characteristics, however, a uniform one-line definition does not exist.

That is frustrating given the fact the core principles of web 2.0 functionality have been systematically or not so systematically summed up by various authors.

According to Prashant Sharma, web 2.0 entails user-centered design, crowd-sourcing, web as a platform, collaboration, power decentralization, dynamic content, SaaS."A web design which is created in a way that it fulfills every possible need of the end user and empowers the user to perform certain customizations within the design." Crowd -sourcing is important as every user is a contributor. Furthermore, that brings to the front the notion of the long tail distribution as millions of small contributors create unique content which adds up to a huge volume.

Web 2.0 as a collaborative space is an overarching principle. The constant interaction users create through editing content (in blogging, wikis, etc) tremendously improves the quality of content and creates an idea of dynamism.

Democratization of content is another revolutionary principle of web 2.0. There is no administrator to 'regulate' your web 2.0 experience. You define the boundaries of your content!....

Meeting with Jason Freedman, the Founder of FlightCaster and OpenVote in San Francisco, the Home of Start-ups in the Heart of the Bay Area

During the American Math Society conference in San Francisco in January this year, I pursued not only my love for mathematics but also my interest in learning about start-ups and connecting with entrepreneurs.

Over lunch with Jason Freedman, my TA from the Tuck Bridge Business Program and one of the co-founders of FlightCaster and OpenVote, I got a chance to discuss web 2.0. The definition of web 2.0 is given by Tim O'Reilly in “Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software”. O’ Reilly claims that the burst of the dot-com bubble gave the birth of a new generation of companies – web 2.0 enterprises. Does it mean that the innovative companies which survived the dot-com bubble are the so-called web 2.0? Jason argued that those are companies which are not simply innovative but essentially provide a service or a product which exists only in the cyberspace; they do not replicate an existing business model which is possible outside of the cyberspace and which can be sustained via other media and distribution channels without the use of the Internet space.

Another feature of web 2.0 is the amazing opportunity to create interactions for the users of the web 2.0 products and services. Web 2.0 involves a great degree of participation on multiple levels (twitter, for example, makes possible one-to-many as opposed to one-to-one communication), dynamic interaction (blogging in comparison to writing a book enables readers to comment instantaneously as opposed to writing reviews in a next edition of the book), and tailored client specific solutions (I pay to advertise my business Buchhalters: Selling Books for You based on the number of clicks as opposed to the number of views of the ad).

Web 2.0 is a significant step forward in the development of products and services in the cyberspace. If the next step is web 3.0 what is the revolutionary idea behind it?