What in the world is "Web 2.0"?

Tim O'Reilly--the man most often credited for coining the term--once wrote a five-page essay answer to that question. Not happy with it, he streamlined his rambling definition yielding this run-on sentence: "Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all connected devices; Web 2.0 applications are those that make the most of the intrinsic advantages of that platform: delivering software as a continually-updated service that gets better the more people use it, consuming and remixing data from multiple sources, including individual users, while providing their own data and services in a form that allows remixing by others, creating network effects through an 'architecture of participation,' and going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver rich user experiences." But the quote was retracted from his website, so perhaps he wasn't happy with that, either.

Social Computing and Dion Hinchcliffe decided a picture was worth a thousand words--or a perhaps a picture should contain a thousand words--and contributed the visual representation of Web 2.0 you see on the right. And for many web surfers, that illustration suggests Web 2.0 can mean many things ... or anything ... or everything ... or nothing!

Actually, Web 2.0 does (or can) have meaning, but only in context. And when it comes to website design, for many web developers it means minimalist layouts featuring patterned backgrounds coupled with whitespace, gradients, and bright, vivid colors. For award-winning South Florida Web Designer Bruce Arnold, it means a lot more than that. He believes business websites should be designed with results in mind. Real results that can be measured in bucks, and not just hugs. That requires dynamic, interactive, flash-enhanced HTML enabling website owners to leverage the full potential of their web marketing and ecommerce investments, along with that of the LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) resources supporting them. Web pages should be coded in tableless XHTML and CSS for streamlined, spider-friendly delivery of semantics independent of syntax, content separate from form. Every element should be validated compliant with all applicable W3C standards and guidelines. And last but not least, every Web 2.0 website should seamlessly integrate presentation with optimization. Here is why:

Building a website without optimization is like building a galleria in the Everglades.
It won't matter how beautiful it is, because no one is ever going to see it...