To me, Tim O’Reilly’s article—“What is Web 2.0”—seems like an idiom. A person from a different country might look it up, and it would say something like this: an updated version of the web that incorporates seven core principles. For its companies, these include: Services, not packaged software, with cost-effective scalability; control over unique, hard-to-recreate data sources that get richer as more people use them;  trusting users as co-developers; harnessing collective intelligence; leveraging the long tail through customer self-service; software above the level of a single device, and  lightweight user interfaces, development models, and business models. Whew! This is an awful lot of information to take in and understand for just one simple word, a period, and two numbers. Not to mention the fact that it is difficult to comprehend in general. I.e., what is a “lightweight interface?” The technical jargon O’Reilly uses unnecessary. Even when he is trying to explain said features, it is difficult to understand.

He does list characteristics of Web 2.0, though, such as: rich user experience, and blogging. He also provides examples of web 1.0 vs. web 2.0, but never comes out and says that web 2.0 is an updated version of web 1.0—which is what it simply is. Obviously, anything 2.0 is upgraded. Instead, he chose to create a paper in which it is described as one large idiom, and I’m not hanging noodles on your ears.