Web 2.0 - Understanding the True Meaning of Web 2.0

Yigit Konur's Curation

"This article written by Paul Graham in 2005 questions what the concept of ""Web 2.0"" really means. Graham states that the fundamental elements of Web 2.0 are Ajax technology, democracy, and treating users with respect, arguing that this concept essentially represents the proper use of the web. He also indicates that Google operates in accordance with Web 2.0 principles, which has contributed to its success. The article encourages readers to gain a different perspective on technology and the business world.

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# Web 2.0 (Understanding the True Meaning of Web 2.0)

November 2005

Does ""Web 2.0"" mean anything? Till recently I thought it didn't, but the truth turns out to be more complicated. Originally, yes, it was meaningless. Now it seems to have acquired a meaning. And yet those who dislike the term are probably right, because if it means what I think it does, we don't need it.

I first heard the phrase ""Web 2.0"" in the name of the Web 2.0 conference in 2004. At the time it was supposed to mean using ""the web as a platform,"" which I took to refer to web-based applications. [1]

So I was surprised at a conference this summer when Tim O'Reilly led a session intended to figure out a definition of ""Web 2.0."" Didn't it already mean using the web as a platform? And if it didn't already mean something, why did we need the phrase at all?

**Origins**

Tim says the phrase ""Web 2.0"" first [arose](http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20

.html) in ""a brainstorming session between O'Reilly and Medialive International."" What is Medialive International? ""Producers of technology tradeshows and conferences,"" according to their site. So presumably that's what this brainstorming session was about. O'Reilly wanted to organize a conference about the web, and they were wondering what to call it.

I don't think there was any deliberate plan to suggest there was a new _version_ of the web. They just wanted to make the point that the web mattered again. It was a kind of semantic deficit spending: they knew new things were coming, and the ""2.0"" referred to whatever those might turn out to be.

And they were right. New things were coming. But the new version number led to some awkwardness in the short term. In the process of developing the pitch for the first conference, someone must have decided they'd better take a stab at explaining what that ""2.0"" referred to. Whatever it meant, ""the web as a platform"" was at least not too constricting.

The story about ""Web 2.0"" meaning the web as a platform didn't live much past the first conference. By the second conference, what ""Web 2.0"" seemed to mean was something about democracy. At least, it did when people wrote about it online. The conference itself didn't seem very grassroots. It cost $2800, so the only people who could afford to go were VCs and people from big companies.

And yet, oddly enough, Ryan Singel's [article](http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,69114,00.html) about the conference in _Wired News_ spoke of ""throngs of geeks."" When a friend of mine asked Ryan about this, it was news to him. He said he'd originally written something like ""throngs of VCs and biz dev guys"" but had later shortened it just to ""throngs,"" and that this must have in turn been expanded by the editors into ""throngs of geeks."" After all, a Web 2.0 conference would presumably be full of geeks, right?

Well, no. There were about 7. Even Tim O'Reilly was wearing a suit, a sight so alien I couldn't parse it at first. I saw him walk by and said to one of the O'Reilly people ""that guy looks just like Tim.""

Oh, that's Tim. He bought a suit. I ran after him, and sure enough, it was. He explained that he'd just bought it in Thailand.

The 2005 Web 2.0 conference reminded me of Internet trade shows during the Bubble, full of prowling VCs looking for the next hot startup. There was that same odd atmosphere created by a large number of people determined not to miss out. Miss out on what? They didn't know. Whatever was going to happen—whatever Web 2.0 turned out to be.

I wouldn't quite call it ""Bubble 2.0"" just because VCs are eager to invest again. The Internet is a genuinely big deal. The bust was as much an [overreaction](http://www.paulgraham.com/bubble.html) as the boom. It's to be expected that once we started to pull out of the bust, there would be a lot of growth in this area, just as there was in the industries that spiked the sharpest before the Depression.

The reason this won't turn into a second Bubble is that the IPO market is gone. [Venture investors](startupfunding.html) are driven by exit strategies. The reason they were funding all those laughable startups during the late 90s was that they hoped to sell them to gullible retail investors; they hoped to be laughing all the way to the bank. Now that route is closed. Now the default exit strategy is to get bought, and acquirers are less prone to irrational exuberance than IPO investors. The closest you'll get to Bubble valuations is Rupert Murdoch paying $580 million for Myspace. That's only off by a factor of 10 or so.

**1. Ajax**

Does ""Web 2.0"" mean anything more than the name of a conference yet? I don't like to admit it, but it's starting to. When people say ""Web 2.0"" now, I have some idea what they mean. And the fact that I both despise the phrase and understand it is the surest proof that it has started to mean something.

One ingredient of its meaning is certainly Ajax, which I can still only just bear to use without scare quotes. Basically, what ""Ajax"" means is ""Javascript now works."" And that in turn means that web-based applications can now be made to work much more like desktop ones.

As you read this, a whole new [generation](http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB113098635587487074.html?mod=todays_

free_feature) of software is being written to take advantage of Ajax. There hasn't been such a wave of new applications since microcomputers first appeared. Even Microsoft sees it, but it's too late for them to do anything more than [leak](http://www.hypercamp.org/2005/11/09) ""internal"" documents designed to give the impression they're on top of this new trend.

In fact the new generation of software is being written way too fast for Microsoft even to channel it, let alone write their own in house. Their only hope now is to buy all the best Ajax startups before Google does. And even that's going to be hard, because Google has as big a head start in buying microstartups as it did in search a few years ago. After all, Google Maps, the canonical Ajax application, was the result of a startup they [bought](http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2005/10/google-maps-lead-engineer-gaze

s-into.html).

So ironically the original description of the Web 2.0 conference turned out to be partially right: web-based applications are a big component of Web 2.0. But I'm convinced they got this right by accident. The Ajax boom didn't start till early 2005, when Google Maps appeared and the term ""Ajax"" was [coined](http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000385.php).

**2. Democracy**

The second big element of Web 2.0 is democracy. We now have several examples to prove that [amateurs](opensource.html) can surpass professionals, when they have the right kind of system to channel their efforts. [Wikipedia](http://wikipedia.org) may be the most famous. Experts have given Wikipedia middling reviews, but they miss the critical point: it's good enough. And it's free, which means people actually read it. On the web, articles you have to pay for might as well not exist. Even if you were willing to pay to read them yourself, you can't link to them. They're not part of the conversation.

Another place democracy seems to win ...