Schott's Miscellany 18 January 2009
WEB 2.0
"Web 2.0" refers to the perception that the Internet has shifted from being an information source to a "participatory web" in which users contribute and collaborate via blogs, wikis, social networking, and other user-focused environments. (The term was apparently coined in 2004 by Dale Dougherty, during a brainstorming session for O'Reilly Media.) Although in some cases enabled by technological progress, Web 2.0 is not a hardware or software development so much as a "set of principles and practices" that prioritize collective intelligence. As noted by Susannah Fox and Mary Madden in a report for the Pew Internet Project, Web 2.0 replaces "the authoritative heft of traditional institutions with the surging wisdom of crowds."
Benjamin Franklin (1706-90)