I've noticed that a lot of energy, effort and debate seems to being going into the "what's in web x.0" question.
I thought Tim had made a mistake in calling the change "web 2.0" rather than a neologism or re-using some archaic word. However, the mistake wasn't his. Tim had created a neologism, "inforware", we just chose to ignore it ... damn that crowd.
Hence we are now stuck with wasteful debates of what is in web x.0.
Why wasteful? Well, we have been entering a new phase of participation, enquiry and expression which is driven by :-
1. The growth of the open meme and its spread from software into other areas (content, hardware, finance etc) increasing participation and enquiry.
2. The effect of the internet, open source and standards in removing barriers to adoption and increasing serendipity, analogy, spread, participation and enquiry.
3. The commoditisation of the communication process and IT through their ubiquity. This increased the ability of the public to express, enquire and participate by removing the barriers to participation (entry) in many information fields.
Web 2.0 is a marker, to signify that this change is occurring. It's not about a particular technology, a rich user interface nor this standard or that standard. It's not even really about web browsing.
What we should be doing is debating, exploring and discussing those driving forces - and adapting to them.
Instead we have a lot of energetic arguments over which things which haven't happened yet belong to which moniker in the future?
Wasteful...
