'Web 2.0' is an example of what the historian Daniel Boorstin would have called 'the Fertile Verge.' Web 2.0 is also a Boom Town, and - as Virginia Postrel points out - 'Boom towns break down barriers; they mix together talent from everywhere; they challenge complacency and overturn assumptions. They are sometimes ugly and almost always stressful, but they foster invention, progress, and learning. And they let people chase their dreams.'

Let's consider the pages of a traditional corporate Website. They include an 'about me' page, a contact page, a careers section, and probably a page with news and press releases. The words look good on paper, and, more than likely, a committee gave the final sign-off on the site's content. Visitors frequent these pages because they want to learn about the company's products and services, contact the company by phone to request more information, or find a job.

Often in software I find myself preaching restraint to those who wish to move platforms for no apparent reason than to keep up with the IT fashion industry; however, even harder than the silver-bullet chasers is dealing with organizations where change is required, not only in a company's software stack, but throughout their entire IT department.

When Microsoft parted with $240M for a 1.6% stake in a company with $140M in revenues and $30M in profits, was it over-paying? Conspiracy theorists were quick to say that the move was deliberate, to inflate the overall value of Facebook to $15BN and thereby prevent anyone else from buying it outright. TIME commented: 'The dotcom bubble just got bigger than ever.'

The BBC carried a report yesterday that raises the alarming possibility of extending cellphone use on board airplanes from just either end of a journey to throughout the duration of the flight. The key to the whole thing, the technical trick that circumvents the problem found in 2003 by the CAA that mobile phone signals skew navigation bearing displays by up to five degrees, is that cellphones in the plane are not allowed to connect to any base stations on the ground.

Google's recent foray into delivering an Ajaxified Web application stack, the Google Web Toolkit, says much about Google's pragmatic method of delivering innovation to the market. I for one, would heartily recommend it for certain applications, while actively advising against it for others. One major issue is that Google makes a lot of assumptions in GWT that are non-starters for certain uses.

With apologies to Bruce Eckel, I sat down this afternoon and put together a draft list of the first-order elements of Web 2.0 thinking. It's not that I have the hubris to consider this list official in any way but it should be a serviceable starting point for debate, discourse, and reference. I'd also like to give credit to Jeremy Zawodny for his write-up pointing me to Tom Coat's excellent presentation notes from his Future of Web Apps talk which partially inspired this effort. I think both of them have really solid source material. But they still don't quite capture a complete high-level picture of the ingredients, forces, and decisions that have to go into thinking about, using, and building complete Web 2.0 software experiences.

Though it's a complex and often subtle topic - and recognizing that Web 2.0 definitions vary across the community - we believe 'Web 2.0' captures the current spirit of innovation in online software. And while some may dislike the term itself, we believe it's useful, broadly recognizable shorthand for the exciting new things that are happening in the online software world today.