Web 2.0 has been called everything from a pointless buzzword to the panacea of the modern Internet. I suspect that it really falls somewhere in between these two extremes. I think of web 2.0 as a convenient shorthand for the collaborative, community oriented web where collective intelligence is harnessed and content is created by the many rather than the few. Users participate in an open fashion using technology that facilitates participation for those who are not serious coders in contrast to the static web of a few years ago. Tim O'Reilly wrote the original definition of web 2.0 with much more detail than what I will provide here, and it is a great read for anyone interested in gaining a better understanding of web 2.0.
