First of all, I must admit that I am strong proponent of Web 2.0. I don’t see any problem with assigning any buzz word to indicate bunch of features to web sites.

But I always uncertain about who has actually coined the term “Web 2.0″? The most telling story about origination of this term is in article written by Tim O’Reilly in What Is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software in September 30, 2005:

…began with a conference brainstorming session between O’Reilly and MediaLive International. Dale Dougherty, web pioneer and O’Reilly VP, noted that far from having “crashed”, the web was more important than ever, with exciting new applications and sites popping up with surprising regularity. What’s more, the companies that had survived the collapse seemed to have some things in common. Could it be that the dot-com collapse marked some kind of turning point for the web, such that a call to action such as “Web 2.0″ might make sense? We agreed that it did, and so the Web 2.0 Conference was born…

I read a lot about this story in various articles, blogs etc. and everything is looks fine to me that Tim O’Reilly has actually coined the term “Web 2.0″ till I point by browser to a interesting book which has been published way back in 2002 (June 15, 2002) by Dermot A. McCormack.

Web 2.0: The Future of the Internet and Technology Economy and How Entrepreneurs, Investors, Executives & Consumers Can Take Ad (Execenablers) by Dermot A. McCormack

Per description of this book:

…The first phase of the Internet economy has come to an end with the dramatic fall in the markets, however phase two (Web 2.0) is just getting started and will take shape much more cautiously over the next couple of years. In this book, Dermot McCormack clearly outlines the specific trends, challenges and opportunities for companies, consumers, the stock market and entrepreneurs….

So this book is also outlining the same concepts and trends which have been described by Tim.

But you must have noticed one thing, date of publication of book published by Dermot A. McCormack and that article written Tim O’Reilly. And so question arises here. Who has coined this term? Is that Tim O’Reilly or Dermot A. McCormack??

Tim may have popularized this term through that published article but IMO it actually Dermot who has first coined this term.

Tags: Web 2.0