It is hard to pinpoint the moment of Web 2.0’s emergence – because there was not one. The was no release of a single new technology. There was no single economic insight or business model that completely disrupted existing markets. There was no industry consortium that defined a new standard. If forced to pick a moment, perhaps Google’s IPO will serve historically as the marker – in the same way that Netscape’s IPO’s is often used to signify the birth of the dot com era. At any rate, at some point over the past 12 to 18 months several factors have aligned and a there is now recognition that the companies and web services that are moving the internet market today share many common characteristics.

Formally, “Web 2.0” as a label was first used by Tim O’Reilly and Dale Dougherty of O’Reilly Publishing. The story goes that the two were brainstorming about the shared characteristics of today’s successful internet companies compared with the characteristics of the pre-dotcom bubble companies of 2000. Their brainstorming led to the birth of a conference – Web 2.0 (http://www.web2con.com/web2con/), which was held in October of 2004. The evolution of internet focused companies and services in the 13 months since that conference have helped to reinforce – and extend - their observations.

Web 2.0 Characteristics
Ultimately, Web 2.0 is an industry buzzword. Like any buzzword, it’s usefulness can be debated because they are easily mis-used and misunderstood. For me, it is best to think of “Web 2.0” as a handy moniker to describe several characteristics about two things: Companies, and Software (though ironically, “Web 2.0” itself is about redefining software to a degree).

In that it describes both companies and software, we can look at Web 2.0’s defining characteristics as “conceptual” and “technical”. The conceptual characteristics describe a company’s approach or way of thinking about their product, and technical characteristics describe the shared programming architecture principles of the product itself. It should be noted that these characteristics are not a checklist. Successful companies are exhibiting all or some of these characteristics. O’Reilly notes that deep adherence in one may be more advantageous than shallow adherence to all (O’Reilly, 5).
Conceptual Characteristics
• Service the Long Tail
• Users as a Source of Value, The Network Effect

Download pdf The First Appearance of Web 2.0
• Software as a Service, Not a Package