Until recently, I was utterly convinced that is was just a buzz word we invented to attract investors hungry for interesting sounding new portfolio companies. And you know what, it just might be. That being true, I think there might be a bit more too it.

Before you start, I agree with everyone who says that the web isn’t something you can just slap a version on, it’s far too dynamic for that. I think the people who say that though, are looking at “Web 2.0″ too narrowly. Instead of seeing the New We” as some kind of technological landmark, I think it might be time to look at it as the cultural movement that it is.


Culture Club

Web 2.0 isn’t about communication.

It isn’t about AJAX.

It isn’t about collaboration or Crowsourcing or catchy vowel-less company names.

Web 2.0 is all about the ridiculous and wonderful stuff that members of the digerati take for granted.

It’s about the weekend blogosphere dust ups.

It’s about micro-celebrity and million dollar blogs.

It’s about payola, citizen journalism and “Search Engine Optimization.”

Web 2.0 is a micro-culture — complete with its own art, ethics and philosophies.

I am not going to try to explain everything there is to know about a social movement in one blog post, but I want to present you with the idea that Web 2.0 might just be one. We have our own dialect (ROFL), celebrities (Arrington), films (Startup.com), literature (any book on New Media Marketing) and cultural theory (collaboration, democratization and information organization).

We even share an aesthetic — rounded corners anyone?

Somewhere along the lines this “web thing” has expanded outwards from our screens to touch on a more significant part of our lives, and it might be time that we started looking at just how deep the rabbit hole goes.


Web 2.0 Roundup

So what do you think? Is Web 2.0 just another marketing tool or has it evolved into a rich and varied sub-cultural movement? I think it has. Moreover, just as the Industrial Revolution can’t be defined strictly by the Printing Press, I don’t think we should try to pin the importance of Web 2.0 to the underlying technology.

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