What is Web 2.0?

Have you heard the term Web 2.0 kicking about? Been wondering what the hell it means? Wikipedia (a Web 2.0 service in its own right) has a running definition:

A website could be said to be built using Web 2.0 technologies if it featured a number of the following techniques: CSS, semantically valid XHTML markup, and Microformats Unobtrusive Rich Application techniques (such as Ajax) Java Web Start. Flex/Laszlo/Flash, XUL, Syndication of data in RSS/Atom. Aggregation of RSS/Atom data. Clean and meaningful URLs. Support posting to a weblog REST or XML Webservice APIs...

In other words, it's everything you've already been doing, or should have been. Or is it?

In an article for Wired, Boing Boing's Xeni Jardin argues that a key component of 'Web 2.0' is 'public participation and contributions from the commons.' This, she says, is not necessarily a good thing. (Jardin is following here the recent invective from Nicholas Carr, who savages Wikipedia for innacuracy and Web 2.0 proponents for ' venerating the amateur' and 'distrusting the professional.'

In fact, as Wikipedia states,

Web 2.0 is a social phenomenon and refers to an approach of doing web sites; direct, honest and open communication with respect to the market as a conversation; reliance on community and decentralization features; free sharing, remixing and licensing.'

The Read/Write Web: Interview With Tim O' Reilly:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/002434.php
The amorality of Web 2.0:
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2005/10/the_amorality_o.php