Web 2.0

"Web 2.0" is the term now used to describe the new Internet, an environment that endorses and encourages "three way communications" and "collaboration" between the huge Internet companies, the individual web site publishers, and an ever expanding global audience. An Internet designed to put everyone on a level playing field and let free expression and entrepreneurial spirit flourish. By "new" I mean the Internet that has evolved for several years now after "the great dot.com bubble burst" of the early 2000's. Before then, the Internet was pretty much an experimentation laboratory ... dominated by researchers and by business scam artists and their unscrupulous investment bankers ... often with business models that made little to no sense. The only survivors were companies like eBay, Amazon, AOL, Ticketmasters, and a few others who developed a system that could not be easily replicated in the physical ("non-Internet") world.

Web 2.0 is now on a roll. Never before have we seen such an explosive comeback. More new domains (someone's personal stake to Internet real estate) are sold today in a week than were sold in several months back in the early stages of the Internet. And the prices of this real estate, even when it is customized for your specific needs, have come down dramatically as well.

Web 2.0 empowers people to:

search the web for free
communicate with friends and family
find new friends
establish new relationships
email for free
watch videos for free
publish for free
paint and draw for free
buy goods and services
sell good and services
explore your sensuality
express you own opinion
interact with the world
better understand the world
generate and share content
download content for free

All you have to do is:

Agree to have advertisements thrown at you at all times
Agree not to steal anything from the big Internet companies
Agree not to hold the Internet companies libel if they deliver you stolen goods

Who wouldn't take a deal like that?

But one major obstacle still remains:

Who protects the small content developers of music, songs, artwork, movies, videos, poems, short stories, documentaries, newspaper articles, books, cartoons, software, and games from being stolen into oblivion?

Who pays them a dime?

Once we solve the issues of "copyright" and how to force the huge search engine companies (in both the U.S. and other countries) to share the wealth, there will be no stopping this Web 2.0 train.

Grab a seat and hold on ... this should be an interesting and exciting journey, indeed!