From what i gather web 2.0 is the equivalent to Microsoft releasing a new version of windows if windows didn't belong to anyone and computers all worked the same. Web 2.0 is a new way of looking at the web as a whole. In the past we used to see the internet as a medium in which top plonk documents up for general access. This is not the case anymore as a result of the new ideas brought in by web 2.0. The idea is that this new concept changes and improves the way in which things are classified and they way in which information is valued.
example 1.
In the old classification process cars were seen as machinery and machinery was therefore linked to the classification of a car. Now through new more intuitive classification systems, a car is obviously still seen as a machine but a machine is not necessarily seen as a car, as it can be other things as well. There is a new parent/child formation that is helping to make sense of the web in a way that has not been seen before.
example 2.
The new concepts behind web 2.0 revolve around the power of the users. The idea is called "group of whatever', and the basic idea is that for example two peoples opinions/knowledge is more accurate that a single persons. So that web based applications such as wikipedia, value the knowledge of a huge group of people in discerning what is accurate and what is not.
These new guidelines for the internet are leading us as users into a new age of better ordered, easier to maintain web based application which we can trust through input.
