In essence, the web is a self-structuring and evolving entity. Unlike most industries that matured in the last couple of hundred years, it’s not controlled by one central entity, or a “boy’s club” of key players (like that of the telecommunications or airline industries). No one’s in charge (nor should anyone be in charge) of clustering a bunch of “blessed” features under a simplistic label and marketing them as a package to the rest of the world.
I don’t mean to criticize Tim O’Reilly for having coined the term “Web 2.0″ because he did precisely what I am advocating. He observed the hotbed of ideas, identified trends and brought forward emerging patterns of successes and labeled them “Web 2.0”.
In my opinion, one should not wait and expect that sets of rules will be created for them by a supreme committee selected to decide on what to include or exclude from any future “product releases” or “seasonal trends”. The next incarnation of the web is happening now, as you are reading this blog post, with incredibly innovative ideas materializing every instant on numerous fronts.
You may want to call this Web 2.1, or Web 3.0, or (why not) Web π. Regardless of what we call it, these days a flood of ideas are being generated and what’s in the container is more important than the if the container is made of tin, glass or crystal.
