Everyone is talking about Web 2.0 as the next big thing in IT. Blogging, photo sharing, podcasting, tagging, social networking, online dating, RSS feeds, Rich Internet Applications – we see more and more applications of this type multiplying on the web every day.

While the Web 2.o Summit was in progress on November 7, 2006 with all the web heavyweights discussing web 2.0 trends, the blogosphere, our new fount of learned thought, was abuzz with voices of caution about the web 2.0 bubble. Various reasons were given.

According to VentureOne’s research team, so far (as of Q3 2006) $455 million of the $1.63 billion in venture capital funding has gone to 79 web 2.0 companies. Free flow of money in a mere buzzword called ‘Web 2.0’.

Web2.0 websites are springing up like mushrooms in the wild wild web. They all look the same.

Not all of these startups would survive and VCs should pull out before the bubble bursts like .com in 2000.

It is ironic that we share and express opinions about the doom of web 2.0 on blogs and follow them in regular RSS feeds, which are the basis of the collaborative spirit of web 2.o.

While we’re at it, let’s take a quick look at some of the Web 2D websites:

At http://www.zillow.com, you can search for a place and take a virtual tour of the houses and places you might want to buy. You can later contact the leasing agency if you wish for a personal visit, or http://www.wikimapia.org where you can view your home from 15,000 feet and locate the nearest grocery store. Plus, it lets you create a sticky note on the page and direct your friends over to your house for dinner.

One can borrow money on their own terms from Prosper.com. You do not need to know the lender personally. All you need to know is who will offer you the money at the best interest rate you can afford.

Someone developed a website called goowy.com. The idea was to make your desktop Global. All you need is an Internet connection and a browser on a PC. You don’t need to install proprietary tools, don’t worry about disk crashes. Everything you need on your desktop PC; Spreadsheets, customer email, word processors, etc. are available online.

One can grab a cup of coffee from the nearest Starbucks when it takes time for the information required in Google Earth to appear on my screen.

All of these observations represent some good ideas and creative implementations, but have we tried using these apps/websites over a 15kbps dial-up connection on a 5 year old PC with 128MB of RAM?

The above mentions are a glimpse of rich new applications delivered to your home on a 512 MB RAMS 2 GHZ PC connected to high speed internet. This scenario is very common in developed countries as well as developing economies like Brazil, India and Ukraine. The inference here is that technology is the main driver of these new trends.

Trevor Cook in the study on Social Media says it all;

“The days of dial-up are fast coming to an end. Half of all Internet connections in Australia are broadband and the number of new connections has increased by 80 per cent in the last 12 months.

Broadband brings with it the reality of an ‘always on’ web. That is, when your computer is running, so is your Internet connection. The ‘always-on’ web is a key part of the rise of Web 2.0, as are falling data storage costs.”

Web 2.0: A natural evolution.

The rise of high-speed, low-cost connectivity has given ordinary users tremendous power to explore new horizons. With increased awareness, we discover new forms of interaction, be it podcasts, wikis, blogs, RSS, email, virtual desktops.

At a recent workshop I attended, the concept of strokes in the context of human psychology was discussed in detail. We look for emotional punches that make our presence recognized, a need to reach out to others in the community around us and make ourselves noticed. Whether it’s the interested looks you get while driving a Ferrari or a mother’s hug when the child feigns a headache.

How is this different from the encouraging comments on the blog about the last image I uploaded to Flickr.com?

Many of us would be aware of SETI – Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence. Many home users have registered to be a part of the SETI initiative. It would require us to have our home PCs to process the astronomical data collected by radio telescopes. The collective set of home desktops volunteered by ordinary people simulates a giant computer brain.

But would we call it collaboration? NO, strictly speaking and definitely not a Web2.0 type of community, but it is a community, a very large community born out of the ‘common interest’ and, more importantly, the ‘need to innovate’, around limited resources.

The SETI project, Myspace.com, or Orkut.com do not offer commercial products, but they do have a collective user base of over 40 million. What these sites offer is an opportunity to interact and be part of the community, the inherent drive of homo-sapiens.

The observations of blog watchdogs and thought leaders about the web 2.0 bubble mentioned at the beginning may be valid but may represent a school of thought. Let’s look at some more observations:

– Intel recently announced the release of a software package that includes blogging, wiki, and content syndication software. This move clearly indicates that Web 2.0 applications, most of which were originally developed to serve the consumer market, are increasingly being adapted for use within organizations.

– Today, companies are launching corporate blogs and RSS feeds. Oracle plans to implement a web 2.0 platform to carry out the integration of recently acquired products.

– More and more control is being passed to users: consumers to search for and provide feedback. American Express is experimenting with the internal use of wikis. On its customer-facing website, it uses RSS, and the company’s website invites its customers to provide feedback to influence product design.

– Recently, the University of Arizona added a web2.0 course in collaboration with IBM.

“Analyst firm Gartner Group predicts that by 2008, the majority of Global 1,000 companies will adopt aspects of Web 2.0 technology in their business”

If we believe in democracy, we can equally well argue, based on the observations above, that web 2.0 is about awareness of how creatively we can consume the World Wide Web.

Web 2.0 should be seen as a concept, a paradigm shift towards the way we work, search, collaborate and do business without plain old html. You’ve come a long way since the day you were born at the O’Reilly lecture.

Web 2.0 can be taken as a properly spelled word that represents a paradigm shift. It could have been iweb1.0 for interaction or something else. What is the difference?

The emergence and application of new ideas, interactivity and technology, the new generation of websites and a rich interface bring us closer to creating a virtual world as shown in the movie ‘The Matrix’. Some may simply disagree with the statement, but then we might have imagined ‘Google Earth’ back when we were in the habit of using bound paper atlases and a pencil to mark places, and laptops were objects of desire, only seen in horror movies. Hollywood.

Web2.0 is just a natural evolution of the old html applications; Driven by the advancement of technology and web2.0 is here to stay.