What Web 2.0 is
First I'd like to start off by explaining what Web 2.0 is and where it came from. Simply put, Web 2.0 refers to the 2nd generation of websites providing services that let people work together and share information online through things like digg.com, del.icio.us, and wikipedia.

Here's a quote from wikipedia.org:

“The phrase Web 2.0 was created by O'Reilly Media to refer to a supposed second generation of internet based services that let people collaborate and share information online in a new way - such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools and folksonomies. O'Reilly Media, in collaboration with MediaLive International, used the phrase as a title for a series of conferences and since then it has become a popular, if ill-defined and often criticized, buzzword amongst the technical and marketing communities.”

The dot-com boom and bust
As you may or may not know, as the new millenium started, no less than one million new web pages went up every day. Investors dumped $30 billion into dot-com startups in a single year.

quote from thewhir.com (for full article)

“"The gold rush to the Internet directly spawned the shared and mass-market hosting sector we have today," says Jackie Fewell, CEO of Web host FatCow. "Hosting was once the bastion of only large and medium-sized companies that needed outsourced solutions and often had vendors such as IBM maintain datacenters and managed services for them. But this gave way to shared hosting for the masses who needed to ‘get on the Net,' eagerly provided by hosting companies both large and small that had a server, some bandwidth and a dream."

But something happened. At the turn of the century, dot-coms started dropping off the map. And they weren't being replaced. Funding houses were shutting their doors. By 2001, hosts started to suffer similar, unsustainable losses. Months earlier, companies like Exodus, GlobalCenter and Digital Island couldn't build data centers quickly enough. But suddenly, their dot-com customers were disappearing. Exodus filed for bankruptcy by September 2001. And it wasn't alone — Loudcloud would announce by June 2002 that it was leaving hosting to develop software. Digital Island reported that its data centers would be used at well under 50 percent capacity.”

What this has to do with Web 2.0
History has a tendency to repeat itself. Lately I have been seeing a massive amount of "2nd-generation" websites pop up out of no where. With more and more sites providing high-end services - many of which are free, the competition is getting tough. It is becoming harder and harder to make money from the internet the same way it was years ago. Websites are having to provide services for free and make money strictly on advertisements or through not-so-obvious means.

Don't get me wrong -- I love the whole Web 2.0 thing. I think it is a great idea. But that doesn't take away the fact that there seems to be an increasingly large amount of services coming out every day. If you sit and think about it, which of these sites are actually going to last? It takes determination, funds, resources, and a lot of support to make it big on the web these days.

The main point
My main point of this article is that I believe there are going to be a lot more Web 2.0 websites popping up in the coming months and it will increase ever so rapidly. As a result, the competition between which service is better is going to be cannons against cannons. Take for example, del.icio.us. They are a social bookmarking service in which people can freely share their favorite websites amoungst others and see what sites are hot and new. del.icio.us was the first of it's kind. However, in recent times, sites like bluedot.us and reddit.com have popped up in direct competition with the social bookmarking service.

This is not the only example. There are many more. Take for instance the many blogging services that have surfaced on the web. Sites like blogger.com, blog spot, MySpace, Word Press, and countless other blog services have paved their way onto the web. The countless other blog services I refer to are the ones who haven't really "made it". I may have missed a few other major blogs, but you get the idea.

Another example would include sites like YouTube.com in which provide free video sharing and hosting. Bolt.com does the same. As well as Eyespot.com. And Google Video. And Grouper.com. And JumpCut.com, vmix.com, and revver.com. The list goes on and on!

Conclusion
People have made a big hype out of the 2nd-generation of websites. I love a lot of these websites. Though I can't help but think that many of these websites just won't make it in the long run. I do believe that there will be a "Web 2.0 bust" in the future, it seems inevitable to me. My prediction may be fairly early, but I just don't like to jump into things too quickly because it's from these impulses which drove many businesses bankrupt in the past. People too often disregard the cause and effect of global trends in hopes of pursuing and succeeding in their own personal goals, which more often than not, can cause serious problems in the long run.

So I urge you before you go and create your "great" idea, you may want to question yourself if it's really going to be practical. Of course, I won't stop you if you try to. If you're willing to sink in the money and time into creating a service then good for you. Just make sure you think of why you're creating the service and ensure that you have the proper plans in place to achieve the goal for your idea.

List of notable Web 2.0 Websites

43places.com - Social travel goals network
43things.com - Social goals network
Blogspot.com - Blogging service
Bluedot.us - Social bookmarking
Del.icio.us - Social bookmarking
Digg.com - User submitted news/articles
Flickr.com - Photo sharing network
MySpace.com - Social networking
ProgrammingIsHard.com - Code repository sharing
Reddit.com - Social bookmarking
Squidoo.com - User submitted "lenses" of information/links
Technorati - Search engine for blogs
Wikipedia - User-maintained encyclopedia
You Tube - User submitted video/media website

Daniel Moxon is the owner of Programming-Designs.com and has the goal of eventually owning a well-known and well-respected corporate business. He is a college student focusing his abilities on various aspects of programming and plans on taking business courses in the future.

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