Web 2.0 32
"Nobody really knows what it means...If Web 2.0 for you is blogs and wikis, then that is people to
people. But that was what the Web was supposed to be all along."[4]
Other critics labeled Web 2.0 "a second bubble" (referring to the Dot-com bubble of circa 1995–2001), suggesting
that too many Web 2.0 companies attempt to develop the same product with a lack of business models. For example,
The Economist has dubbed the mid- to late-2000s focus on Web companies "Bubble 2.0".[53] Venture capitalist Josh
Kopelman noted that Web 2.0 had excited only 53,651 people (the number of subscribers at that time to TechCrunch,
a Weblog covering Web 2.0 startups and technology news), too few users to make them an economically viable
target for consumer applications.[54] Although Bruce Sterling reports he's a fan of Web 2.0, he thinks it is now dead
as a rallying concept.[55]
Critics have cited the language used to describe the hype cycle of Web 2.0[56] as an example of Techno-utopianist
rhetoric.[57]
In terms of Web 2.0's social impact, critics such as Andrew Keen argue that Web 2.0 has created a cult of digital
narcissism and amateurism, which undermines the notion of expertise by allowing anybody, anywhere to share and
place undue value upon their own opinions about any subject and post any kind of content, regardless of their
particular talents, knowledge, credentials, biases or possible hidden agendas. Keen's 2007 book, Cult of the Amateur,
argues that the core assumption of Web 2.0, that all opinions and user-generated content are equally valuable and
relevant, is misguided. Additionally, Sunday Times reviewer John Flintoff has characterized Web 2.0 as "creating an
endless digital forest of mediocrity: uninformed political commentary, unseemly home videos, embarrassingly
amateurish music, unreadable poems, essays and novels", and also asserted that Wikipedia is full of "mistakes, half
truths and misunderstandings".[58] Michael Gorman, former president of the American Library Association has been
vocal about his opposition to Web 2.0 due to the lack of expertise that it outwardly claims though he believes that
there is some hope for the future as "The task before us is to extend into the digital world the virtues of authenticity,
expertise, and scholarly apparatus that have evolved over the 500 years of print, virtues often absent in the
manuscript age that preceded print".[59]Trademark
In November 2004, CMP Media applied to the USPTO for a service mark on the use of the term "WEB 2.0" for live
events.[60] On the basis of this application, CMP Media sent a cease-and-desist demand to the Irish non-profit
organization IT@Cork on May 24, 2006,[61] but retracted it two days later.[62] The "WEB 2.0" service mark
registration passed final PTO Examining Attorney review on May 10, 2006, and was registered on June 27, 2006.[60]
The European Union application (application number 004972212, which would confer unambiguous status in
Ireland) was [63] refused on May 23, 2007.Web 3.0
Definitions of Web 3.0 vary greatly. Some[64] believe its most important features are the Semantic Web and
personalization. Focusing on the computer elements, Conrad Wolfram has argued that Web 3.0 is where "the
computer is generating new information", rather than humans.[65]
Andrew Keen, author of The Cult of the Amateur, considers the Semantic Web an "unrealisable abstraction" and sees
Web 3.0 as the return of experts and authorities to the Web. For example, he points to Bertelsmann's deal with the
German Wikipedia to produce an edited print version of that encyclopedia.[66] CNN Money's Jessi Hempel expects
Web 3.0 to emerge from new and innovative Web 2.0 services with a profitable business model.[67]
Futurist John Smart, lead author of the Metaverse Roadmap[68] defines Web 3.0 as the first-generation Metaverse
(convergence of the virtual and physical world), a web development layer that includes TV-quality open video, 3D
simulations, augmented reality, human-constructed semantic standards, and pervasive broadband, wireless, and
sensors. Web 3.0's early geosocial (Foursquare, etc.) and augmented reality (Layar, etc.) webs are an extension of