My friend Russell pointed me to a rad article discussing "Why there's no such thing as Web 2.0". In the article he links to another article with a quote from Sir Tim Berners-Lee (the original internet guy for the uninformed), which basically calls it Hype 2.0 (my own term, but you can use it freely, unlike Web 2.0). To simplify your lives:

BERNERS-LEE: "Totally not. Web 1.0 was all about connecting people. It was an interactive space, and I think Web 2.0 is of course a piece of jargon, nobody even knows what it means. If Web 2.0 for you is blogs and wikis, then that is people to people. But that was what the Web was supposed to be all along."

So, from the man himself we have the hype settled. My deviation on the matter follows.

The problem and the benefit of the term "Web 2.0" (imho) is that non-tech people with lots of money wanting to jump on the more money bandwagon can be fooled by people throwing the term around (because it is hip sounding), and non-tech people who have lots of money and want to throw it at things and make more money for them can be fooled by people bandying the term around.

Web 2.0 is a brand, and we live in a world that increasingly doesn't understand something unless it is a brand, i.e. something consumable in one sitting, by the masses. These are the same masses who have just learned about "on blog", "on internet", and (especially in South Africa) "on broadband". Web 2.0 is the cherry sweet flavour the internet has always been, it is just different thinking, different platforms and approaches to the same thing the internet has always been. Our goldfish collective memory doesn't remember IRC and Newsgroups (and BBSs), it does however think MSN, GoogleTalk and Google Groups, and Facebook are new concepts. Facebook isn't a new concept, it is the same concepts that have been around for a long time, it is just a new platform for those same concepts that has benefited from the years of obscured platforms that did the same things. It is only logical for someone raised on multiple platforms to figure out how to roll the goodness of all of them into one platform, it is progress. The web 2.0 brand is something that lets uninformed people peek into the tech world, and say the right terms at the right times, so everyone can play a round of golf and have something to talk about.

In the Journalism world, as a digital native (I need to brand myself as something if I am going to get anywhere) I yawn when everyone talks about convergence and puts it up on a lofty balcony, as if it is difficult to attain. For me the talk of convergence is passe, and it is more about people understanding that they actually can work in a different (perhaps more efficient way) just by thinking about their tasks differently. Convergence is a people problem, not a technology problem. The same talk of convergence happens in many telecommunications conferences. People talk about convergence and triple play, and all sorts of other hype crap, and it all really comes down to how you think about the same things you and others are already doing. I guess that is why Facebook and youtube and myspace took off like they did, because tools like geocities and others paved the way for them, they prepared peoples brains to be able to embrace a new way of doing the same things they are already doing.

I don't know where this leaves you, but I know how to turn on my hype filter and hear what hypists (new term; refers to people who knowingly, or unknowlingly engage in promotion or the further entrenchment of hype) are talking about because I am an implementer, and I know what they actually mean when they fling these brands around hoping to impress, delude or dominate. Hopefully the people with lots of money who like the tinkle of hype continue to be fooled by nice people who actually want to do useful things with new thinking that people have achieved.

The problem in all of this is people with low senses of morality, but then they are always they problem, just like the people who like to deface things, and just like the people who like to abuse other people. People continue to act just like people no matter what the medium is, it is just about wading through the jargon and understanding which human behaviour is involved, and then acting appropriately.