The deeper I get into this, the more I keep hitting a wall around terminology. What do we actually call this participative, social, viral web we all know today? The catch-all “Web 2.0” just doesn’t sit right with me.
I’m not sold on that label for a bunch of reasons—mainly because it makes it sound like Web 2.0 is some kind of brand-new version of the Internet, instead of a natural evolution. This second wave of the web came out of a whole bunch of shifts (tools, tech, devices, habits, you name it), but it all happened gradually. No big reset button.
So what do we call the web we use every day—blogs, Facebook, Wikipedia, iPhones and all? Second-gen web? Social web? Participatory web? I’m still hunting for the right term… Got ideas? I’m all ears.