The term "Web 2.0" was first coined by O'Reilly Media and MediaLive International during a brainstorming session. The term's original meaning was thought to differentiate the failing companies of the DotCom Bubble to those technologies and companies that were successful during and after the burst.
In the initial brainstorming session, the team came up with examples of companies and platforms that may separate Web 1.0 from Web 2.0. An example of this table is below.
| Web 1.0 |
Web 2.0 |
| DoubleClick |
Google AdSense |
| Ofoto |
Flickr |
| Akamai |
BitTorrent |
| mp3.com |
Napster |
| Britannica Online |
Wikipedia |
| Personal Websites |
Blogging |
| Evite |
upcoming.org and EVDB |
| Domain Name Speculation |
Search Engine Optimization |
| Page Views |
Cost Per Click |
| Screen Scraping |
Web Services |
| Publishing |
Participation |
| Content Management Systems |
Wikis |
| Directories |
Tagging ("folksonomy") |
| Stickiness |
Syndication |
As the term grew popularity there was a need to identify one application or approach as "Web 1.0" and another as "Web 2.0". Since the term "Web 2.0" didn't really have any hard boundaries, a "gravitational core" of principles and actions were created to help identify a true Web 2.0 platform.
According to wikipedia.org:
Web 2.0 is a term often applied to a perceived ongoing transition of the World Wide Web from a collection of websites to a full-fledged computing platform serving web applications to end users. Ultimately Web 2.0 services are expected to replace desktop computing applications for many purposes.
What Is Web 2.0?
Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software
Go to the Web 2.0 Development Center