The Web2.0 Concept Is Spreading Like A Bug

The last few months the web2.0 idea has become a top subject in conversations between webmasters or marketers or people who deal with the web. A lot of these people who are utilizing the capabilities of the Internet to make money or create successful websites are planning on using the web2.0 phenomenon to build next generation, democratic, collaborative websites based on this popular concept.

In fact, I foresee that this year alone will have the biggest number of web2.0-based websites come online. And I am sure that everyone and his/her brother will claim to have build the next hottest and coolest web2.0 website on the Internet.

But this is not the case dear reader. Not all of these so-called web2.0 websites are actually implementing web2.0 technologies and ideas. It's alarming how many webmasters and marketers are naming their new websites as "Web2.0 websites" or as "Next Generation Websites" when they just aren't!

We all use web2.0 websites these days. It seems like those websites are magically embedded in our daily Internet activities. I will just mention a few of those highly successful and popular web2.0 websites:

Youtube.com, Wikipedia, the big article/content directories like the popular buzzle.com content directory, social bookmarking websites like digg.com or furl.com, wiki-based websites like wikihow.com where users can edit the contents of the website and the list of successful web2.0 websites go on and on. But all these remarkably popular web2.0 sites are becoming victims of an act of sabotage.

I'm sure you've seen people around the web claiming that web2.0 is just another Internet trend and will soon go away. In my opinion people who claim this are frustrated by the number of the thousands of non-original web2.0 websites appearing online everyday. According to my recent research on the web2.0 concepts I came across hundreds of websites which just thought that adding the "Web2.0 website" label on their homepage made them next generation.

Well dear webmasters and marketers, it's not that simple to create the next generation web2.0 website. A site has to be unique, innovative, creative, democratic and should utilize numerous technologies to get the job done. Take a look at the definition of a web2.0 website according to the infamous wikipedia free online encyclopedia:

"..Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform. Chief among those rules is this: Build applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them. (This is what I've elsewhere called 'harnessing collective intelligence').."

Amazing and inspiring words. But as I said only a few people with a vision are actually realizing this concept and the entire web2.0 definition when building their new "Next Generation Website". Most websites are just taking the whole value out of the term causing other people on the Internet to call the web2.0 phenomenon a "Trend" or a "Fad". What these fake websites are doing, is to effectively hurt the reputation of the real and original web2.0 websites causing them to lose customers over something which they just can't control!

But hey, even with all those hundreds of fake websites appearing online as we speak, the web2.0 phenomenon will remain intact, popular and will steadily grow more and more. Because web2.0 is here to stay! If you are thinking of creating a web2.0 website or if you want to stay tuned on the web2.0 news and events, join this free web2.0 E-letter with insights and useful advice on the web2.0 phenomenon and how you can use its concepts and ideas to build the next Youtube or MySpace!