Web 2.0 is Not About Technology, Its About Sharing Information

I’ve been having interesting conversations lately about Web 2.0. As I’ve written before, many folks feel like it is a buzzword, and I completely understand that. I hate buzzwords, too.

The conversations usually center around the impression that Web 2.0 is technology-based, and that nothing has really changed in technology, so Web 2.0 is nothing new, either.

First of all, I think its clear that technology is always changing, and I think that technology is at the heart of Web 2.0. More importantly, however, is what people are doing with the technology.

Sure, many Web 2.0 companies will use MySQL as their backend database software. That’s because it’s well-featured, stable, and free. I use it for all the databases I create.

However, the gist behind Web 2.0 is opening up information in databases so that others can use it. Instead of having just the one corporate site accessing the data store, let others access via some API. Provide a simple API like RSS so that others can have read-only access. Provide a sophisticated API via SOAP so others can have read-write access. It’s what happens when you open up your data store that is interesting and new.

This methodology is what Web 2.0 is about. It’s about sharing information. Yes, we’ll use technology to do that, and certain technologies like MySQL will prove widely used, but it’s the sharing part that’s really key.