What is so wrong with the Web 2.0 moniker?

I’ve started a new conversation about the Web 2.0 moniker here.

The main reason is that I’m a bit annoyed by all the hostility 2.0 is getting at the moment. Yes it is hype and no it’s not revolutionary, but it is here and it’s real.

I look at it as going back to the original ideals of the Web back in the mid 90’s.

I believe that Web 1.0 was great. But when the suits and cool kids came in and started creating Web 1.1, Web 1.2 etc. they lost all the ideals that made the web cool.

Unfortunately as us developers know to move forward it is often times easier to start a fresh without having to manually clean up all the old junk that featuritis added.

I think an example is better than anything. I was the web master at AltaVista back in 1996. When I started it was as simple as google. I remember how the marketing heads (much to the collective groans of the engineering department) kept adding more and more junk to both the search and corporate pages.

First we were happy to provide search for people as well as branded search for other companies such as Yahoo. But of course with 600 mouths to feed they tried to be a fully fledged Yahoo competitor instead.

A rough overview of the process was:

• 1.0 Louis Monier a researcher at Digital releases Altavista and it took off within a few weeks of the official launch
• 1.1 The corporatization of AltaVista. I was hired to do this.
• 1.2 Selling of branded versions to clients
• 1.3 Pulling all of Digitals network software and hardware into AltaVista
• 1.4 Selling most of Digital’s network software and hardware out of AltaVista
• 1.5 Partner, Partner, Partner (This is when I quit)
• 1.6 Portalize, portalize
• 1.7 Sold off
• 1.9 Sold off again
• 2.0 Stripped of everything but search

Another example is this post comparing the evolution of Yahoo and Google over the years.

So seriously, is the Web 2.0 term really so bad? Does it even need a definition?

Please voice your own opinions on the Web 2.0 moniker here