Web 2.0 : hot or not ?

I'm kind of tired with the recurrent dispute I read here and there on the Web : "is this website 'Web 2.0' ?", "is Web 2.0 something else than a buzzword?", and the worse one "is Web 2.0 still a hot topic today?".

Please, let's put aside the fashion effect, and go straight to the facts. Since I started working with web technologies in the 90's, I saw always more user-genrated contents, more systems that are able to communicate with each other, more websites that put emphasis on connecting people. At a certain moment (around 2005?) those features became preeminent and nearly every succesful innovative Web project adopted at least some of them. There's been paradigm shift : from monologue to dialogue, from monolitic to interconnected systems, to lonely browsing to communty gathering. That's what Web 2.0 is, and I don't know better words to call it.




When I say 'I love you' to my wife, I really mean it. And I don't care if other people use the same words to mean 'I want to spend the night with you', or 'I'm hungry, is there something left in the fridge?'.

For the same reason, I'll keep calling 'Web 2.0' any system that has user-generated contents, is interoperable and/or allows social intaction. So go away with you buzzwords disputes!