According to Wikipedia:
"Web 2.0 is a term often applied to a perceived ongoing transition of the World Wide Web from a collection of websites to a full-fledged platform serving web applications to end users. Ultimately Web 2.0 services are expected to replace desktop computing applications for many purposes."
The term does not imply that the WWW has been technically updated - more that it use has extended beyond being a term of reference for users - providing social interaction, downloads, blogs, file sharing, data management and so on. Web 2.0 also represents a move into replicating desktop applications such as word processing, spreadsheets and presentation software.
Beware of marketeers quoting their websites are "Web 2.0" as the term is in danger of being over-used and may not actually represent what Web 2.0 is capable of delivering.
Moreover, experts are debating whether good website design and usability is being compromised for the sake of providing elements of Web 2.0. Jakob Nielsen a software and web design consultant is reported on the BBC website this month as saying that web design companies are neglecting the basics of web design in favour of animation, flash technology and large graphics. Largely being a champion for accessibility issues and usable e-commerce sites, he argues that good practice is falling behind when seeking an attention-grabbing site - Web 2.0 is just the "latest fashion".
Primarily the site should be easy to navigate around, easy to use, employ an effective search engine, be free of buzzwords and jargon and not make unnecessary demands on the user (registering to a site before they purchase, for example). According to Nielsen - "The idea of community, user generated content and more dynamic web pages are not inherently bad...they should be secondary to the primary things sites should get right."
Nielsen's research showed that 90 per cent of users did not utilise all the tools a self proclaimed Web 2.0 site had to offer. Nielsen argues that websites were in danger of losing visitors as a result. "Most people just want to get in, get it and get out. For them the web is not a goal in itself. It is a tool."
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