Definition of Web 2.0

Taken from Time Magazine’s top buzzwords of 2006 – the Tim O’Reilly definition of Web 2.0 – by Rebecca Myers, who tries hard tp keep it short and sweet (but we are dealing we techies here):

“Web 2.0”

Welcome to the 2.0 of 2.0 — only, is anyone using the phrase correctly? Web 2.0 is thrown around to refer to a) user-generated content b) podcasting c) social networking websites d) anything that didn’t die back in the tech bubble e) all of the above. Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly Media, credited with popularizing the phrase in 2004, describes it thusly: “the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually updated service that gets better the more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an ‘architecture of participation,’ and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences.” And that’s his “compact definition” — seriously.