Until now, we have all been happy (and confused) about web 2.0. What is it built on? Ajax, Flash,Silverlight, Air, Php? Is it a platform or is it an app? And, what the hell is it?

Tim O’Reilly has done his best to build upon his original naming of the phenomenon Web 2.0. According to him, Web 2.0 is… well read his paragraph-long definition here, and can be split into following characteristics. To me it still seems very abstract, so let’s discuss the points, one by one.

• First, platform. This means that web-based technology can be used to launch a range new applications, allowing developers to build on top of it and earn money too. This is happening, e.g. Facebook, though monetarily, only in a minority of 2.0 apps.
• Second, data, which means the information created by users and about users, which can be leveraged in applications. Again, happening, though only partially. Users own some data, other data created by them is owned by the site, e.g. Digg.
• Third, participation as a basis for an application. Again happening. eBay has no value without sellers and buyers.
• Fourth, “open source” development. Slowly happening, though there is still no clear business-model and much resistance to it. You could see the blogosphere as a bad example, and Facebook as a good one.
• Fifth, content-based business models. Eh… there’s a lot of content, a lot of noise, very few business models based on it. You could argue that this has been newspapers’ business-model for 100 years and look where they are now.
• Sixth, perpetual development of applications. That means that an application is continuously improving, which is clearly happening across the scale.
• Seventh, software above single devices, the merging of desktop and web, or perhaps leaving behind the desktop all together. So far this has been fairly one-way, from desktop to web. But there are some great examples, particularly in the SAAS-sphere.
• Eight, early adopters. This was perhaps the case in 2004, but I think application-developers are seeing a slow-down as supply is clearly exceeding any possible demand.

The web is fragmented, very much so. We have productivity apps, which can be split into a number of segments, we have the media, we have e-commerce, we have communication, etc. So really, what we are looking at is the evolution of applications, based on various technologies, and which can be segregated into a number of fields: Work 2.0, Media 2.0, Commerce 2.0, and Communication 2.0.

And by separating functions, it becomes easier whether there is true evolution, by which I mean the transition towards a new platform. This, however, also means that it must also be sustainable, an important point to keep in mind.

Work 2.0

What this includes are technological tools which enable humans to increase their productivity. And really, this can again be segmented into fields like word processing 2.0; accounting 2.0; graphics 2.0; etc. The real question is, have we evolved in that domain?

If you look at how people are being productive, the answer is yes and no. Due to the shift of “work” apps from the desktop to the web, you see a number of people shifting their work-area to the web also. However, there is still a barrier between the desktop, which I define as offline-use, and the online web, as there is no ubiquitous internet, nor are there many web-apps which comfortably work on the desktop or other devices either. What we are also seeing is that text-based applications do best in the web-sphere, but anything dependant on CPU or processor-speed (graphics or computation) is still largely restricted to desktop-usage.

Media 2.0

We are clearly seeing a shift here, which started with web-publishing of text, to pictures, to audio, to video. The shift becomes all that much more apparent if you look at the way media 1.0 is dealing with this: Lawsuits and DRM from Hollywood and Record-companies; newspapers shutting down; and many media 1.0 businesses shifting to online business models. And while there clearly is a future for media 2.0, very few “independents” are making any real money from it.

Commerce 2.0

This is clearly the winner, at least in terms of revenue. So much so, that a 3.0 stage is sure to follow soon. It’s not universal, but business models like eBay (which I would define as 2.0) lead to a shift of second-hand goods-trading from off-line to online. Books (Amazon) saw a similar movement. Electronics also. E-commerce as a platform for individuals is doing particularly well.

Where we need an evolution is in terms of interactive goods, i.e. fashion and fresh food, which will require some out of the box thinking, beyond the web-desktop paradigm, but towards the “real world”-web-”real world” paradigm. A great example is the recent announcement of buying songs played in Starbucks through iTunes in real-time; which clearly asks for an expansion to concerts and other environments, as well as similar usage-mechanisms with other types of products.

Communication 2.0

Primarily being designed as a communication platform, the web clearly shines and is growing in this regard. From e-mail to messaging, to voip to video-oip. Facebook is a clear evolution here as well, allowing for a rich environment for people to interact, beyond text, voice, video. Some people would argue Twitter is part of this, I would classify this as rss 3.0 and thus media.

So, can you come up with other segments in which there has been or needs to be an evolutionary leap, and which can be achieved by leveraging the advantages the internet provides?