LooseSuits

I think you have a skewed idea of what web 2.0 is.

Its not about the stereotypical rounded edges, glossy logos, and gradient backgrounds.

Web 2.0 is about creating a rich user experience!

Most importantly, Web 2.0 focuses on making your website accessible from more than just your www address. An example of these are widgets and RSS feeds.

Ofcourse it is going to become more common, the tech community welcomes those kinds of things!

I personally don't think you raise a very valid point at all. Are you suggesting that since everybody has cars they should go back to horse and carriage?

If your worried about being creative, take web 2.0 and expand on it!

I get this question a lot and I never have a good answer.

When does 2.1, 3.x, etc. kick in? Who makes that decision? Isn't there a 2.5 site some place? If there is a 2.5 site then we aren't 2.0 anymore are we?

this is a very entertaining video of web 2.0.

Click Here :)

"Web 2.0" is not dying, and was around before people even coined the term. I surely hope the versioning of the internet dies though.

"Web 2.0" was never born. It's a vague buzzword that when it comes right down to it, is meaningless.

The best definition of internet versioning I've heard was proposed by Spivack. Here's an excerpt from his article:

[...] Web x.0 terminology be used to index the decades of the Web since 1990. Thus we are now in the tail end of Web 2.0 and are starting to lay the groundwork for Web 3.0, which fully arrives in 2010.

He has a pretty picture in that article as well. A graph of web development.

In this sense, yes, Web 2.0 is dying — as we're inching along in time, adding new technologies and shifting emphases.

@ozone42 why am I getting the impression your are the pinnacle of web users that wear brown paper bags over their heads?

I'm wearing a brown paper bag for not subscribing to hype?

If web 2.0 was providing a rich user experience, then where was it in the early days of java apps, or flash?

If web 2.0 was about the decades, then where was it in 2000-2005?

If web 2.0 was accessibility why do the vast majority of web users not know what an rss feed or widget is?

I love the forward march of technology, and innovative new uses of old technology (which is what I view the bulk of web 2.0 being,) but take a step back and look at the bigger picture. People here on 9rules are the minority of web users. Your average joe we are not. Things we take advantage of and enjoy every day are things most people have never heard of.

Yeah the web is getting better, and it will continue to, but the label is nothing more than the media trying to get a piece of the attention.

I think we should take a page from Netscape and jump immediately to Web 6.0!

Seriously, I don't think "Web 2.0" means anything. It's a bussword term that basically means, "Look, we're doing cool things with technologies that have matured enough to enable us to do cool things."

It's the marketing hype that destroys its image. In essence the idea of the web connecting humans, powered by humans is ... heady. And potentially life changing.

So yes, it is dying. And Ozone 42 is right. Web 2.0 doesn't exist because it's too general a term, trying to encapsulate an evolving medium.

A chunk from something I wrote a little while back:

The accepted progression seems to be as follows:
Web 1.0 = the browsable web
Web 2.0 = the read/write web
Web 3.0 = the active web (dare I say it, the semantic web)

It could also be argued that:
Web 1.0 = big corporations etc trying to sell us stuff through the web
Web 2.0 = everybody trying to sell things through the web, but developing ‘communities’ of people in the process (Tara’s Boutique Era?)
Web 3.0 = god alone knows. Snow Crash or something.

The problem is that those definitions seem very absolute. Web 1.0/Web 2.0 isn’t a binary state. It isn’t an absolute truth. It is something that is tentatively and pragmatically true, not a statement about objective reality.

All that being said, Web 2.0 (and please, as you read this, imagine me doing air quotes and wincing every time I use the phrase) is a very useful term. It gives a handle to ideas which are, at best, nebulous and hard to grasp for the average person. It sets things aside, makes them new and exciting, and helps to generate interest…

(The rest of it is a big ol' archaeology/internet rant if you're intrigued)

I'm not sure Web 2.0 can really be classed as 'dying' - if you're one of the people who think it's just a phrase then it was never really 'alive' to you in the first place. If your one of the people who think it is the next phase, well as has been already pointed out, the majority of web users wouldn't know RSS if it got up and introduced itself at a cocktail party, let alone be able to pick a 'web 2.0' site out of a line up.

To most people they're just sites that they enjoy using and that they are starting to fit into their lives. At the end of the day I've never been fond of pigeon-holing things. I might have described something as "web 2.0" to one of my old professors because I knew he'd appreciate the irony plus he'd immediately get all the connotations and the supporting evidence, but the majority of the time I just say "a website where the users get involved".

I like your labeling a bit better Cas, but seeing how my use of the web hardly ever has to do with buying or selling things I have to wonder how far out from the norm my perspective is, or yours is.

Certainly there's lots to buy and sell, but I primarily use the web as an information source and communication channel. I've used web based communities since the early 90s, basically as soon as some folks got a handle on CGI enough to post messages.

I hate the use of buzzwords...but as I see it: Web 1.0 is pre-rich web apps, Web 2.0 is rich web apps, and Web 3.0 I suppose would be web apps becoming desktop apps (maybe Silverlight will enable this?).

@Ozone42 (& other anti-versioning proponents)
I don't see what the big deal is. The term is only a buzzword because it's new. Eventually, the buzz will fade and versioning will serve an identification function.

Let's compare the versioning of the web to age-stages of humans. Surely, "Baby", "Young adult", "Adult", "Elderly" are very general labels. Age relates to a gradient of human features — yet, I think we can all agree that these terms are useful in everyday discussions.

Following the arguments presented here against web-versioning — then "age labels" shouldn't be applied to animals because it would be pointless to try and capture their "evolving nature".

Web versioning is commonly used. Deal with it. Make the best of it. Help turn it into something useful.

It's really not a big deal, I just think it's silly.

I'm not sure how you can call it commonly used though, since Web 2.0 was the first time it was used. Sure that term is prolific, but that's the way buzzwords work.

As for turning it into something useful... well if people start agreeing more what it means, then that's fine. It'll be about as useful as using "Baby Boomers" and "Generation X" to describe age groups of people. It'll define a time period, if nothing else.

I'm not sure how you can call it commonly used though, since Web 2.0 was the first time it was used.

Well, it's certainly been used often since its conception and it looks like Web 3.0 is catching on as well.

well if people start agreeing more what it means, then that's fine.

I think they will. Like you said, it's recent even though it's prolific — but given time the dust will settle and confusion will fade. I agree that it will probably be as useful as the identification of a time period, hardly more.

See, now we agree what it means. It's all coming together ;)

sigh...

I've sat on this question for a while now trying to come up with a proper answer, but I realized you need a proper question first. The itself isn't dying and if you mean the major hype/buzz that was being generated the last 2 years that has to do with the startups, not the web itself. I mean we had YouTube, Myspace, Facebook, Digg and others building up all the buzz and there hasn't been anything (besides Joost) that has done that this year.

It's simply a cycle that the web and all industries go through. Instead of worrying if Web whatever is dying, embrace this quiet time because it usually means companies are taking their time making products better and the copycats are going unnoticed.

Web 2.o isn't dying. It's just becoming expected.

As many of the superficial w2o characteristics are being absorbed by the non-versioned web, it's losing its exclusivity. It's not as cool to "get it." Which probably means the cool kids are looking for a new version.

And, regardless of how meaningless/trite/buzz the version label seems, I don't mind it. It raises a bar, keeps developers aggressive, encourages better apps/services/sites.

I think it's time for a new version, personally, if for no other reason than all the good 2.o looking domain names are taken.

Dying? No way. Are the same types of implementations proliferating on the Web? I think so. What we're seeing now is what happened when everybody started seeing what they could do with this thing called the World Wide Web. They got excited and say opportunities galore. And rightfully so.

Fast forward to today and you'll find more tech-savvy individuals making use of their experience to push the technologies even further. That involves a lot of copycats, each trying to carve out a piece of cyberspace for their own. That's okay, but eventually, others will die off and create in their absence the next Google or Yahoo.

Nah, it's not dying, it's just finding out what it wants to be when it grows up. :)