The term Web 2.0 has come to dramatically increased usage over the past few years. Many people have since begun to appropriate this hot new buzzword for their own websites while others are not quite so eager to embrace this new concept, considering it little more than an inappropriately named web-marketing gimmick. It has clearly polarized the web into two opposing camps, of adherents on the one hand and skeptics on the other. Yet in spite of all this-or perhaps because of this-there is still plenty of confusion and controversy surrounding Web 2.0. What is it exactly? And are the changes to the way the Internet has come to be used in recent years really significant enough to warrant this name?
The phrase itself is attributed to OReilly media, the company who coined it in 2003. Subsequently, the first Web 2.0 conference, which was held in 2004, brought it into widespread public consciousness. A series if conferences hosted by OReilly media has made the term even more popular than ever and facilitated the adoption of it by many industry pundits. The term as it has come to be used by OReilly media, refers to what many in the Internet industry perceive to be the second wave...