Bounced... It seems worth mentioning that "Web 2.0" can be see as spinoff of Esther Dyson's cleverly named technology missives from the 90s, Release 1.0, 2.0 etc. (significantly these titles were later bought by O'Reilly-see below). I haven't read these since the time but if my memory serves me right (and sometimes it doesn't) I believe there is little in the current definition of web 2.0 that Dyson didn't envisage even in her writings about communities circa the mid nineties. Difference is we couldn't really make them happen then. Today, the tools to make it happen are better and easier to use, access is faster and more people are there to take part. So while I agree that it's not an entirely new practice, I do think that some of those early web dreams are now being realised. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esther_Dyson "Dyson and her company EDventure specialize in analyzing the impact of emerging technologies and markets on economies and societies. She created the following publications on technology: * Release 1.0, her monthly technology-industry newsletter, published by EDventure Holdings. Until 2006, Dyson wrote several issues herself and edits the others. When she left CNET, the newsletter was picked up by O'Reilly Media, which appointed Jimmy Guterman to edit it and and renamed the newsletter Release 2.0, which is also... * Release 2.0, her 1997 book on how the Internet affected individuals' lives. Its full title is Release 2.0: A design for living in the digital age. The revision Release 2.1 was published in 1998. * Release 3.0, her bimonthly column for the New York Times, distributed via its syndicate and reprinted in Release 1.0. * Release 4.0, her weblog. On March 4, 2005, this weblog moved to Dyson's Flickr account ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/edyson/ )."