Web 2.0

There was a time when trendy expressions were durable.  "Groovy" lasted about five years before it was no longer "cool" to say it.  In business, "impact" as a verb stuck around for a decade or more.  During the Web Bubble, "disintermediation" was cool for a year or so before, as with other trendy words, using it indicated you were a little behind the curve.  The problem is that technology moves so fast now that these terms fall out of favor long before they have a chance to prove themselves.  This trend is already happening with "Web 2.0."

Web 2.0 has real merit and staying power, however.  It might no longer be avant-garde because of overuse and overexposure, and by favoring it we may find ourselves a bit derriere.  But the term is an intermediate point between the original "World Wide Web," a collection of pages and a protocol for using them, and "Web 3.0," the truly semantic Web, where the entire collection can be mined for meaning.  Web 2.0 offers some fascinating features and capabilities that enable people, organizations, governments, and even machines to interact based on some simple principles:

• The Web as a platform.  The Web itself becomes the place where computing happens, which is part of the growing interconnectedness or "flattening" of the world.  Services on the Internet can be assembled and disassembled at will.
  
  
• Collective intelligence and wisdom of crowds.  Some evidence exists that the collective behavior of large numbers of people is a better predictor than expert judgment.
  
  
• Using data, not just collecting it.  Data is gathered from both internal and external sources with the intent to use it to act differently.
  
  
• The end of release cycles.  Continuous, unnoticed software change without conflicting and overlapping release cycles replaces point releases and disruptive, crippling maintenance efforts that drain IT budgets.
  
  
• Designs for "mashing" and "hacking" applications.  These application designs provide a rich user experience in the corporate IT environment by "mashing" multiple applications together or by "hacking" an application to alter its behavior.  This is all made possible by adherence to standards precipitated by the dynamic nature of the Web.

Operational decisions being reflected in services, the use of predictive analytics to apply the implications of group behavior to transactions, the focus on getting insight from data rather than just collecting data, and the ability to refine decisions continually without affecting other systems are characteristics of smart enough systems and Web 2.0.