Stumbled across an interesting read, written almost in the style of a manifesto.  The author proposed that Web 2.0 is dead, however I think he/she missed the mark on describing what web 2.0 is all about.

The description given talks about w2.0 as a toolset, and summarises by saying that w2.0 = simplification.  This is far from the reality in my view.   W2.0 to me is more of a philosophy than a toolset.  I think the trend he is seeing is design that is evident in many sites that like to categorise themselves as w2.0, that clean gradient-filled glass-buttoned big-font design popping up everywhere.  Sure, some of those sites are simple, and useless.

Facebook is a great example of web2.0, embraced on many levels:

• After creating a profile you can add friends to your network
• You can define your relationship with those friends and have them ‘approve’ the relationship
• You can of course communicate by writing on someone’s wall
• You can find new people with similar interests
• Generally, you collectively maintain your online life on one page

Additionally, facebook have openned up some development tools (you’ll need to be logged into facebook) for the community at large to build little applications that you can add to your facebook profile.  w2.0 in action!  The community working together for the collective good of the community!  It’s not dis-similar in fact to opensource and I’m surprised that the comparison is not done more regularly.  Perhaps it should have been called ‘open web’ rather than web 2.0?