Funny this came up because I have been preparing a white paper on this. I will release it later this week and post the url.
Here is the gist: I think that Web 2.0 is really a misnomer. It is a collection of largely un-related technologies that have all been around for at least a year. If you had to describe the whole package, you might say "Here are technologies that were not available when the web started, but they are now, although none of them are being used that much."
So what are we talking about here?
- "AJAX" - creating web pages like google maps and google suggest and OWA, that update while you are watching, instead of only when you submit.
- Combining blogs and RSS feeds into web sites.
- "Tagging" images and posts, so others can see your responses to them.
- New uses of FLASH that create more interactive pages and more useful forms
There is more, but this is the basic idea. I think these are important advances, and each will have some advances here and there for NPOs, especially when they are used as part of a well-planned strategy.
But they are not elements that need to be used together; they are just new advances in web technology, just like animated gifs, audio, streaming video, integrated server scripting packages (ASP, PHP, CF, etc), web services, CSS, XHTML and others.
So in the end, the message doesn't change -- make your strategic plan carefully, and then see how technology can help you make it happen.
Eric Segal - Eric@datacollaborative.com