I've slowly begun to accept the fact that the term Web 2.0 is here to stay. This means I've had to come up with a definition of the term that works for me. Contextually, the term still is meant to capture the allure of geek-loved sites like Flickr and http://del.icio.us. Being "Web 2.0" means having the same characteristics features of these sites like open APIs, tagging and AJAX.

One of the things I've realized while reading TechCrunch and sitting in meetings at work is that there is a big difference between folks like Caterina Fake or Joshua Schachter and the thousands of wannabes walking the halls in Redmond and Silicon Valley. The difference is the difference between building features because you want to improve your user's experience and building features you've been told those features are how to improve your user's experience.

Everytime I see some website that provides APIs that aren't useful enough to build anything interesting I think "There's somebody who heard or was told that building APIs was important without why it was important". Everytime I see some website implement tagging systems that are not folksonomies I think "There's somebody who doesn't get why tagging is useful". And every single time I see some site add AJAX or Flash based features that makes it harder to use the site than when it was more HTML-based I wonder "What the fuck was the point?".

I guess the truth is that TechCrunch depresses me. There is such lack of original thinking, failure to empathize with end users and just general unawareness of the trends that led to the features we describe as being Web 2.0 in our industry today. Sad.