Another title for this post COULD be Headlines are misleading…
Interesting blog posting indicating that the term Web 2.0 is no longer a “hot buzzword” NOT that functionality of the overall meaning of Web 2.0 is dead…
If you are into statistics this would be a blog posting that should be read…
Another good reason to read it would be the over 180 comments that have been posted in less than 24 hours
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/14/the-death-of-web-20/
The Death Of “Web 2.0?
by Robin Wauters on February 14, 2009
I’m not going to discuss the economic meltdown and its devastating effect on technology companies and internet startups in this post, but rather something that crossed my mind earlier this morning: “Web 2.0? seems to become more and more a void (and an avoided) term. Of course, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it is definitely apparent.
So why do I say it’s fading? For one, because the number of startups that contact us and include the term Web 2.0 in the subject line or message is visibly dropping (and that’s a good thing), and I hardly ever see it mentioned anymore on other technology blogs and news sites either. That’s not really tangible, so I took a look at the number of mentions of the phrase across the web, and they seem to be decreasing significantly, reflecting my feeling on this.
Judging by Google Trends, which shows how often a particular search term is entered relative to the total search volume across various regions of the world (and in various languages), the term started being used at the end of 2004 when Tim O’Reilly organized the first edition of the Web 2.0 Conference. Search queries for the term started picking up in the middle of 2005, when TechCrunch was started – with the tagline “Tracking Web 2.0? by the way – and the number kept increasing until the end of 2007. After that, the trend is clearly downwards, falling back to the level it reached in early 2006 today. If the trend continues, there should only be a handful of people left who scour search engines for “Web 2.0? by 2011.
Also noteworthy: take a look at the geographic regions that have generated the highest volumes of worldwide search traffic for the term over the years – it’s Asia, with the top 5 regions being India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Malaysia (in that order). Furthermore, Google Trends pegs the number one language in which people search for stuff related to the topic of Web 2.0 to be Russian before English.
And just in case you’re curious: “Web 3.0? doesn’t seem to picking up much.
Let’s all rejoice.
Google’s “Insights for Search”, a beta service that analyzes a portion of worldwide Google web searches from all Google domains to compute how many searches have been done for the terms you’ve entered – relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time – gives an even better overview:
I’ve never had anything against the phrase “Web 2.0?, but I wouldn’t miss it a bit if it were never used again.
How about you?
I tried once to stop using the term web 2.0 but clients and prospective clients wouldn’t let go. Maybe that’s changing now.
Web 2.0 type services/technologies are still very young, what word/phrase would you use to define this group of services/technologies?
I never really cared for the term Web 2.0 but it is useful. It indicates technologies newer then good ole’ fashioned Web technologies and it seems to be converging on some type of higher level of interaction with the users, blogs, Twiki’s and so on. Web 3.0 hasn’t caught on at all…thankfully so in terms of just communicating with people and with agencies trying to make policy I think it’s just fine (even if somewhat annoying).
As I posted today on Twitter, there is no sense in trying to kill terms that have been in use for years and have finally been catching traction in the mainstream community.
Really, everybody says it’s stupid to name every political scandal after Watergate, but everybody still does it. Ideas and movements need labels, and after not really understanding Web 2.0 until last year, even thought I spoke about blogging at a Web 2.0 event in 2005, I’m happy to use the term and will continue to do so.
Also, Web 3.0 is simply not real. Web 2.0 is more about a human/cultural generation, not a software generation, which means it has 10-20 years left in it.
Hmmmm…let’s see. eGov, iPod, Web 2.0, Techno-, pseudo-, -orama, -anista, -Gate, Fab-, para- What’s in a word? Web 2.0 is just a convenient current hook for a concept that has already occurred no matter what we call it.
I heard Eric Schmidt say that Web 2.0 is a marketing term used to describe a different way of building applications. The term corresponds to the platform Ajax. Now Web 3.0 is a term that refers to applications that will be pieced together. The applications will be small, fast and customizable. Data will be in a cloud and spread virally not purchased in a store. It will run on anything work everywhere