Thought Press.

There were lots of views to my "Web 2.0 Ignorance" post last week, a few negative comments and a trackback to a blog that posts about, well, posts of interest. The blogger discussed the over use of the term "Web 2.0." I agree that it has turned into a buzzword. In fact, the term has exploded onto the blogosphere and there are many marketing companies who are incororating it into new services. The bottom line is that Web 2.0, whether you agree with the term or not, is really a new wave of innovation on the web. Yes, message boards and social communities have been around since before the public Internet began but now new technologies have taken that and expanded it into something huge. There are now hundreds of sites that fall under the Web 2.0 category. These new startups remind us of the dot-com bubble in the '90s. Newsweek has written about it. USA Today has published articles. Countless news sources and blogs discuss it every day.

I don't claim to be an expert. Yes, in my work I have had a great deal of exposure to the Web 2.0 trends, and I read related blogs like TechCrunch, but I am not an expert or a marketing professional trying to promote myself. I mentioned my monitoring of the industry to point out that maybe my view is slightly biased because of that.

I simply wanted to state that those that take some sort of interest in technology should not limit their knowledge or radar to one specific discipline. Not everyone needs to know what Ajax or XML is, but in keeping a broad lookout and by reading the news, one should have a basic idea of big trends or changes. And Web 2.0 is one of many. I didn't label it.