Business Insight Zone

I’ve had enough.

No more “Web 2.0,” much less “Web 3.0″ (whatever that’s supposed to mean), and so on. The whole idea of “Web [integer].0″ is lazy and inherently meaningless.

Why meaningless? Because the boundaries between “generations” are (a) unclear, (b) shifting constantly, and (c) far more incremental than the X.0 nomenclature would indicate. The usage comes from the common practice of numbering software releases to show major or minor increments in code. E.g., the browser in which I’m typing this is Firefox 2.0.0.11.

Many of the tools that people would like to label “Web 2.0″ or “Web 3.0″ for p.r. purposes would more accurately be something like “Web 1.7.2″ or “Web 2.06″ . . . which is ridiculous.

So, from now on, I’m going to do what I can to shift the discussion toward the (intentionally facetious) format I used in the title of this post.

Welcome to “Web 2008.02.04.” Tomorrow we will welcome the arrival of “Web 2008.02.05.”

(Image from the Computer History Museum.)

Category: Internet,The language of business