3 Terms To Better Understand Web 2.0

I had the chance to connect with Greg Verdino, the Vice President/Director of Emerging Media at Digitas, about some words he uses to discuss, explain and understand web 2.0. I referenced the six categories of web 2.0 and he responded with three additional terms that help us continue to get our arms around this broad topic:

• Filters: A corollary to aggregation, these could be destinations that bubble up the best content in a category (like Digg), tools (like RSS) or even the recommendation engines in commerce sites like Amazon.com.
• Distributed web: The notion of a content provider/creator providing content in a widely distributed fashion. Rather than drawing consumers to a central destination or hub (any traditional web site) the publisher surfaces the content and syndicates it broadly (even if in a controlled fashion) so that the content finds users where they are as opposed to requiring users to come find the content. Think of widgets, RSS (yes, there is overlap between this and filters), affiliate players from companies like Brightcove or syndicated video/content models.
• Community: A term used in conjunction with conversations about social networking. Community can also include the entire social media category of blogs, photo/video sharing, etc.