Those of you who have read my stuff know that this '2.0' bug has been knocking around my brain recently. It's not so much a cheap desire to gather more buzz for Ipedo (although, by way of disclaimer, I should point out that this is what I am paid to do for my day job), but rather something that keeps nagging me to ask if there's not something to it.
Tim O'Reilly is most famous for declaring Web 2.0 in his article What Is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software. His article tried to define what was a very elusive and potentially out of control concept, on the way to becoming a meaningless buzzword. Along the way he discovered a set of design patterns that were undeniable. Not that everything was totally new - there were people doing 2.0 stuff in the 1.0 era - but overall there was a pattern. I liked the following way of describing Web 2.0:
You can visualize Web 2.0 as a set of principles and practices that tie together a veritable solar system of sites that demonstrate some or all of those principles, at a varying distance from that core.
We are on the verge of 2.0 everything. I see many of these as hollow marketing efforts. On the other hand, I see 2.0 as a challenge - a new way of thinking. Our new 'ng' or '.next.'
So far, the integration vendors have not really done anything to define what the next generation of integration should look like. Saying that it's SOA is a punt. That's not an answer. The question is whether there is something new, something that can be hosted, a service, collaborative, open that will cost less and yield more.
Stay tuned here as we ponder.
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