i am so sick of hearing people in the web/design industry referring to the current online and interactive trend as “web 2.0.” seriously, wtf is this web 2.0, and why is everybody calling everything everywhere web 2.0? um yeah… can’t think of much of an answer? that’s because it’s all a bunch of b.s. (yeah, thanks time magazine for really embedding this crap in people’s heads by naming all of us the person of the year last year 
).
true, there is a ridiculously overused trend for websites and designers to use those annoying reflections in their graphics, such as logos or product/photo galleries. gradients are also important in this new trend. oh, and don’t forget the large social and interactive component where everybody can post anything about everything… tag it… and post comments about someone else’s meaningless ramblings. don’t get me wrong, social interaction and engaging the user on a more personal level in the design of web sites is critical, but of course it has to be done correctly and hopefully there’s some great aesthetic behind it. all of this supposedly constitutes as being web 2.0…
unfortunately we have to deal with poorly put together, visually unappealing and continuously error-prone web sites like myspace. yeah it’s popular (and i admit… i have my own account on there mainly for the social aspect), but why is it popular? obviously NOT for its aesthetic appeal. just look at the way in which some user’s personalize their pages… lack of taste, dysfunctional and overall irritating to view. and now third-party sites exist that offer even more of this crap for people to customize their pages with… so as time progresses we are plagued with more and more crap not only on myspace, but across the web. social networking sites like thefacebook, youtube and flickr thankfully care a little more about how their sites look and function!
and today on newstoday, someone posted a topic asking “Anyone know of a good Web 2.0 Dbase System?” what!? a web 2.0 database system? good gawd!
so anyway, can we all please stop using this meaningless “web 2.0″ phrase? oh and while we’re at it, let’s avoid putting reflections in all of our graphics from now on. thanks! 