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At the end of 2006, Time magazine’s Person of the Year was ‘You’. On the cover of the magazine, underneath the title of the award, was a picture of a PC with a mirror in place of the screen, reflecting not only the face of the reader, but also the general feeling that 2006 was the year of the Web - a new, improved, 'second version', 'user generated' Web. But how accurate is our perception of so-called 'Web 2.0'? Is there real substance behind the hyperbole? Is it a publishing revolution or is it a social revolution? Is it actually a revolution at all? And what will it mean for education, a sector that is already feeling the effects of the demands of Internet-related change?
In this TechWatch report I argue for the distinction between Web technologies (ongoing Web development overseen by the W3C), the more recent applications and services that are emerging as a result of this ongoing technological development (social software), and attempts to understand the manifestations and adoption of these newer applications and services. I start with a brief discussion of the historical context, with Sir Tim Berners-Lee and his vision for a single, global, collaborative information space and contrast this story of the technology with the ideas of Tim O'Reilly, who has attempted to understand the ways in which knowledge about the technologies, and the adoption of the technologies, can be used to make predictions about technology markets.