I have one hell of a lot to do today, but the Web 2.0 phenomenon is stealing my mental bandwidth this morning. Web 2.0? Some say it's the "web as platform" or "almost an operating system." Others call it the "read/write web."

Web 2.0 means different things to different people. No one has her arms around the definition because there isn't one; there are many. Here's mine: Web 2.0 is simply the next step in the evolution of the web. That means it will probably involve lots of fine-grained content, pages assembled from many sources on the fly, mash-ups (putting several interoperable apps together to create something new and different), lightweight applications, and more power and personalization in the hands of the individual user. Web 2.0 is not a technology; it is not a thing; it has no standards: it is a dreamspace. It's what we label anything that smacks of innovation on the web. That's good. We sometimes need new pages on the community's virtual flipchart on which to sketch new ideas.

Google just introduced a blog tracking service. It's missing a few pieces but it will be a winner. The Google brand legitimizes new services the way putting "IBM" on a PC created a mammoth market, even though the technology wasn't compelling. Gmail and Google Maps and GoogleTalk are Web 2.0, as are RSS feeds.

Check out the new Google blog searching tool. Not much different from Technorati, you think. But hey, the interface is not intimidating. By saving a link to a search, the user can easily create a custom, repeatable look at an array of blogs. Web 2.0 is giving ordinary mortals the power to write programs intuitively. The sum of the Web 2.0 parts is exponentially greater than the individual parts.

See Tech Crunch's review. Try these...or roll your own. It's the Web 2.0 way.

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