Web 2 DOT or Web 2 POINT…and "OH" or "ZERO"?

Web two point oh.

Stephen Downess last blog post..Downes and Wiley: Continuing the Conversation

Wouldn’t you say “version two point zero” for a software release? Even though I say web two point oh (go figure).

Funny, I think I mostly say Web two-oh. That’s like I’m really saying Web Twenty? Yikes.

I was at a meeting Thursday night and kept hearing ‘web 2 dot oh’ and I’ve always said web 2 point oh. Just had that initial moment of …’have I been saying this wrong all this time?’ Web 2 point oh it is. And there’s this which supports that…can’t argue with the Kool Aid pitcher.

I avoid the term Web 2.0 all together when possible.
There is a time and place for it I guess, but I’d rather steer clients to more concrete terminal objectives.

For one, the term has been around since at least 2003, and 6 years later it is still not clear what it means. Some might argue it’s mainly about integrating all kinds of internet services into the web browser (or at least making them look and feel like part of the browser). Others feel like it’s more about cramming ‘push technologies’ into the browser in the interest of advertising dollars. Then there’s the idea of ‘content sharing’ and ‘cloud computing’ across different servers and sites. Before long, EVERYONE wants a piece of ‘Web 2.0′. All they gotta do is use the term…and they’re in!

Don’t get me wrong…Web 2.0 has a place in coffee house discussions and IT conventions (among other IT personnel). It can be a very thought prevoking term.

In I&D work, I just think it is far to broad of a term. At the end of the day, it’s still those terminal objectives that matter the most.

Finally, I advocate just dropping the .0. Just say Web 2!
It’s not necissary to use a decimal if it only goes to one place and that place is a zero.

If anything, it should be called Web XXX….invent your own standards that are full of propitary code, banner ads, and iffy links to material that may or may not be properly licensed first! So long as it works when the user clicks it…………who cares? *sarcasum*

2 point 0

@Janet – I concur with Harold: it’s the “version” of the Web, even though the Web doesn’t really technically have a version.

@Brian – Excellent points. I’ve been trying to use *Social Media* rather than Web 2.0. In my current position, most of the people that I interact with limit their internet usage to Google search & perhaps some kind of Webmail. To use a term like Web 2.0 is alienating to them. When I say Social Media, I have an opportunity to awaken curiosity because that team *means something*.

Kristina Schneiders last blog post..A Qualitative Study of Five Authors of Five Blogs on Training and Development

web 2 point ‘oh’

2.0 is a number and we use “point” for decimals (you don’t call it decimal dots!). Dot com is part of a textual term (not a number, bradon[dash]hall[dot]com) as you would have in telegraphs (dots and dashs).

I guess asking Tim O’Reilly would be appropriate since he is the one that coined the term. I saw his keynote at the eLearning Guild’s DevLearn08 and can’t remember how he said it.

I “think” he said: web two point oh. However, the term has become many different things to people and doing a quick search will help define it as Tim originally had.

Great post though! Funny how these mundane issues become hot topics. Kind of like Dear Abby saying that a toilet paper roll should be hung with the paper coming off the back of it (she wrote that sometime in the 1960s I believe).

It was her most controversial post ever (lol, a pre-Web2.0 blogger!)

Perhaps I over think the whole blogging thing and should just focus on the truly controversial topics….the consensus seems to be that it’s web two point oh.

I’m with KoolAid Man -”web two oh”. Though I suppose I said “Windows Three dot One” back in the day…I do agree with the above thoughts – “social media” brings us to the “versionless” viewpoint of continuous application development.

Greg Ketchams last blog post..The Socially Networked LMS

I don’t know why I ever questioned KoolAid Man. What was I thinking?

I say Web two point oh. I suppose it is my preference since that is what I always hear.