What do you do if you are an obscure language group in Austin, Texas looking for attention? You declare “Web 2.0″ the one millionth word in the English language. So says the Global Language Monitor, which looks at usage of words on the Web and adds them to its online dictionaries. “Web 2.0″ has been in common usage for a long time, even though Merriam-Webster does not yet recognize it. But interest in the term peaked long ago, and everyone is pretty much ready to move on now. Even John Battelle and Tim O’Reilly, who popularized the term with their Web 2.0 conferences, realize the term is stale. They are looking to extend their brand by calling their next conference “Web Squared.” I guess Web 3.0 was taken.
Kudos to the Language Monitor for picking the one word guaranteed to get them coverage. I just don’t think that “Hai Joi” (Word No. 999,999) or “Noob” (No. 999,998) would have elicited the same response. However, their definition is not so great:
Web 2.0 – The next generation of web products and services, coming soon to a browser near you.
Someone should tell the folks at Language Monitor that Web 2.0 is already here and has been in our browsers for the past few years. Even though it is an quasi-official word now, everybody still has trouble defining it. Here is O’Reilly’s original dissertation on the subject. And his so-called “compact definition”:
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.
Here’s my definition: It’s the modern Web. Period. Can we move on now?
first!
Didn’t MA retire this word like 6 months ago?
People still using 2.0 need to be flushed down the toilet along with ’sustainable’ ‘unprecedented’ and ‘guru’.
Hey, I’m also a Bob! And guess wat? – second!
// Twitter @projectlog
BTW: These guys seem to be som years behind the rest of the world…
its a stunt. web 2.0 isnt a word, nor will it ever be.
it will however be a buzzword used by crappy startups to describe their 5 lines of code.
Seriously? Can we put this one next to irreguardless in terms of quality?
Only if you spell irregardless right.
Yeah, it’s spelled “regardless.”
Actually, it’s irregardless:
http://www.merr...ry/irregardless
It may not be proper, but it is a word.
http://answers....d=1006011500124
what a waste.
Doesn’t a word have to be, um, one contiguous word? And since when do words include numbers?
If I was forced to describe it, I’d call it Web 2.0 “the second-generation Web, fusing community and social interaction.”
I would have named the 1,000,000th word: dun. As in, we’re dun making up words. The English language is officially dun. Learn the to use the ones we have correctly and perhaps then we’ll re-open the dictionary. Until then – dun.
(And then used the publicity as an opportunity to teach kids the value of language).
+1 dun
( LOL, 1,000,001 )
Merriam-Webster added ‘w00t’ into their dictionary near the beginning of 2008. Not sure if it’s the first word utilizing digits, but it’s definitely there.
If you’d like for the English language to stop expanding, might it interest you to get rid of synonyms as well?
web 2.0 is reflections in logos, silly people.
When I first heard the term web 2.0 – I thought of it as the post-bust web. A second generation of startups that learned from the bubble/bust era…more of a business term than a technology term.
Turns out it was a marketing term used to sell a product (product being preferred stock).
You always know it is web 2.0 company when it’s a) cool 2) can’t possibly be profitable
First of all, “Web 2.0″ is not a word, but it doesn’t take a card carrying member of Mensa to realize that. This makes about as much sense as calling HTML5 , SMTP or HTTP a word. Second, if “Web 2.0″ is stale and Web 3.0 is taken, shouldn’t O’Reilly have called it “Web Cubed” not “Web Squared”? Finally, who the hell cares anyway?
“web” is a word that has existed for some time.
“2.0″ is a number that has existed for some time.
Discussion closed.
i didn’t think trademarked words could enter the dictionary. looking more into that.
Web 2.0 is trademarked? by whom?
thermos, ping pong, Kleenex…
I still use “it’s the 90’s”.
Congratulations to ‘Noob’ on being word 999,998
Well done Noob, well done.
Could have been worse….Apparently, one of the words they were considering for the one millionth word was “chickonomics.” Go look that up in the Urban Dictionary!
“Here’s my definition: It’s the modern Web. Period. Can we move on now?”
Very funny, you just conforted the infamous Frédéric Lefebvre, the French politician who wants to regulate Internet based on a Chinese model. When asked about what web 2.0 is, he answered “it’s… today’s Internet. The Internet Frenchs surf on.
-What does it means?
-It means today’s Internet.”
He later claimed he answered this precisely ecause it’s complicated and unclear. But most French bloggers concluded he had no clue of what web 2.0 is at this time. I think he has read Wikipedia meanwhile.
http://en.wikip...déric_Lefebvre
Is it listed as a synonym for “fail”?
Highly unlikely this has any scientific credibility …
http://tinyurl.com/mtj6qs
Web 2.0 has nothing to do with a specific technology or feature. Any quite frankly it has nothing to do with social networking specifically.
Web 2.0 simply the ability for everyday non-technical people to publish and share content they have generated with others via the internet.
Why does everyone make it so complicated?
umm web 2.0 is not a word…its two words (dictionaries only use one worded vocab)…or more like one word and two number with a dot in between…its like calling itunes 8 a word. its a version. In a couple of years we’ll be talking abt web 3.0, and then we’ll be seeing web 4.0, then web 5.0 and on and on. Will they try and put all of those in websters dictionary? Windows XP is bound to be used as much or more than web 2.0…should tht be a word too?
Word number 999,999 is not “Hai Joi”, it’s “Jai Ho” as used in the movie Slumdog Millionaire.
Don’t blame me. I voted for “binged.”