We all are talking about Web 2.0, but from where this term crept up and does it really has such big potential?

Web 2.0 isn’t new, but people are finding new and innovative ways to use it. If strategic, you can use Web 2.0 to market your products and services and promote your business or site to millions of people around the world. You do have to do this in a politically correct and decent way. Many applications allow readers to interact with the Web pages they browse. These applications are all part of Web 2.0 technology, and include SOAP, XML, JAVASCRIPT and AJAX. These interesting technologies allow you to interact with a web page that is live in much the same way you would interact with a page from your own computer, a page you created.

Web 2.0 isn’t new, but people are now taking an active interest in becoming members of a global community. Thus, Web 2.0 is becoming a lot more popular than it has been in the past. Sites including Gmail, Flickr and Digg are all the rage among collaborative types interested in link and information sharing on the Web.

Well Sameer, lets look at the picture is this way;

No doubt that the concepts of collaboration and community building existed prior to Tim's Web 2.0 articles: it's called society. And perhaps the parallels between what we are seeing on the web and the dynamics created by the advent of society are the foundation of Web 2.0. Our understanding of the dynamics of the Web as they existed ten years ago were crude. Tim refined them couple of years ago. He presented them as he understood them and has continued to refine them. They continue to evolve today. To scoff them simply for being incomplete or because they existed prior to being collectively named is, quite frankly, inane.

It is entirely possible our understanding of these dynamics is incorrect. But knowledge isn't advanced unless people are willing to make observations and plant a stake in the ground. O'Reilly Media has done so. If you have a suggestion to make, make it. Your claim that "It is a waste of time, and you should be holding out for something better" does little to advance understanding. You have an audience here. If you have an alternative idea to advance you should do it. The world would be better off for it.

The concepts that Web 2.0 claim, such as collaboration and community building, already existed without being roped into selling a marketing phrase.

The problem is when legitimate endeavours are being embraced and smothered in some vague term that doesn't mean much more than "Tim At Necker Island".

The most telling indication is the way the definition of Web 2.0 changes according to successes and failure. If something worked, it's Web 2.0. If something didn't work, it wasn't.

Suffice to say that claiming to be Web 2.0 will get you shown out the door when trying to raise cash from people who have better places to invest their money.