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Invariably, Web 2.0 is a term you love to hate or hate to love but either way, you'll know you'll get folk's attention by saying it. I've been lucky enough to talk to quite a fair number of people around the country about Web 2.0 in the last few months and hear what they think of it. An overall picture has begun to emerge out of these conversations. We'll get to what exactly Web 2.0 is again in a moment. But one important ingredient, perhaps the key ingredient, is that it describes the inversion of control of information, processes, and software wholesale over to the users of the Web. This is because users now generate the majority of content these days and they also provide the attention that drives almost everything online financially (particularly advertising). And all of us have a uniquely equal access to the global audience of the Web; each and every one of us now has our own world-class pulpit (in the forms of blogs, wikis, and other mechanisms) that is amazingly the equal of any other person on the Web. Web 2.0 has also been successful in spawning almost ten related sub-movements that range from Identity 2.0 to Democracy 2.0.
Web 2.0 Architecture of Participation For those who don't follow it all the time, it might even be hard to remember what all the pieces of Web 2.0 are (and keep in mind, these elements are often reinforcing, so Web 2.0 is definitely not a random grab bag of concepts). Even compact definitions are sometimes a little hard to stomach or conceptualize But the one I like the best so far is Michael Platt's recent interpretation just before SPARK. Keep in mind, the shortest definition that works for me is that "Web 2.0 is made of people." However, it's so short that important details are missing and so here's a paraphrase of Platt's summary.
Some Apparent Web 2.0 Trends

- An Increasing Attention Scarcity: There isn't enough atttention, or users that supply it, to go around. Particuarly there's just too many channels vying for it or existing channels are still dominate the majority of attention. This will affect the viability of new online entries and force them to create innovative ways to acquire attention.
- Online Social Communities Are A Winning Model - It's unclear what the monetization is (other than advertising) or the cost of successfully starting one, but many of the fastest growing and most popular places heavily use social software techniques to draw and keep users. And some begunnung are to acquire valuations in the billions. (Some Examples: SecondLife, MySpace, FaceBook.).
- The RIA Model Works - The term Ajax was just coined in February of last year, but it looks like it's here to stay and then some. Using nothing more than what you find in the browser, Ajax can create great Web platform ready clients that are as good as native clients. To see the potential, check out the radically advanced Hive7 using nothing more than Javascript. Expect that XUL, WPF/E, and Flash will give Ajax a bit of a run for its money later this year though.
- The Mashup Phenomenon Will Mature or Wane - Part of the problem appears to be the tools but also the usefulness. Most mashups aren't more than a feature or two. More sophisticated ones are coming, but if compelling mashups don't materialize in bigger numbers, the technique could lose mindshare as a model for building composite online software made up from the services of multiple Web sites.
- Traditional Software Vendors Will Struggle in a Web 2.0 World - Microsoft and Google will likely figure it out, though it's not a sure thing either. Microsoft has serious product line baggage and Google has healthy challenges in managing its growth and maintaining a sharp focus on strategy. Google's latest products don't seem to have their famous edge, for example. The smaller, nimbler Web 2.0 startups might continue to be a great source of innovation but it might make sense for Google to acquire startups and immedatiely spin it off to avoid the "big company effect."

Finally, here is a quick traffic analysis of some of the Web 2.0 companies I've covered in my articles. Note that some are successful almost beyond description, at least in terms of user adoption. MySpace is probably the best example. It's actually going to run out of available users on the Web fairly quickly at its present growth rate (over a million new accounts every 4 days). Interestingly, some of the more well-known Web 2.0 companies are actually started to see a leveling off effect. Whether this is because of stiff online competition or boredom with the service, I can't say, though I would wager there have been effects from both.m