Ed Tech Talk #47 - O'reilly and the web 2.0 conference controversy

       
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I realise its a bit late, but I have just thrown some interesting ideas about this at my MindSpace Art Blog/Podcst.

In addition to sharing my two cents worth, I mention how it is actually quite dammagin for this issue to remain largely unresolved (even though O'Reilly has backed down) and I propose an interesting solution:

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So I propose an interesting solution to this issue. I think from now on, everyone should refuse to refer to the term “Web 2.0? and instead use the term “Web 2.1?. Not only does this give O’Reilly no leg to stand on, it also sends a clear message that the social web will not stand for corporate intimidation. So in this way, it is describing a new version of the web, which justifies an incremental version increase. And with an almost self prophetic irony, it is creating a new version of the web that the term itself ushers in. Web 2.0 has been around long enough for it to look significantly different now compared to when it first emerged, so I think it is high time to evolve to Web 2.1. Web 2.1 can also represent the related fights for Internet Neutrality (www.savetheinternet.com and www.itsournet.org) and Free Culture (www.lessig.org and www.eff.org).

To pre-empt any future issues, I’ll state that not only Web 2.1, but Web X.X can now be considered a generic term, so no one can own trademark control over it in the future.

Of course, the only way for the term Web 2.1 to become completely generic and for people to be free of unacceptable corporate restrictions and intimidation is for this idea to be spread and used. Ok, sure, it is a long shot, but if it was to happen, ideally, it should not be used blindly, but should be used with knowledge of what it represents and why it became necessary.

I've now dug a little deeper, and found that quite a few people have proposed that incrementing Web 2.0 is a good idea, which is great - it might just catch on yet. However, none of the posts that I read went into the same detail I covered in my post.