Are researchers ready for Web 2.0?

For a while now, the term Web 2.0 has been bouncing around in business circles. But what exactly is Web 2.0? A software program? The next generation of Web sites? Just another new marketing buzzword? And perhaps more importantly for us, why should the qualitative research world care?
While the term suggests that it is a new version of the Internet, Web 2.0 is more about facilitating information exchanges and collaboration among Internet users. It is Web technology and design that creates a conversation. In contrast to Web 1.0, which was a static and largely one-way communication vehicle, Web 2.0 has led to the evolution of Web-based communities like social networking sites and blogs, and creates the ability to interact by using visuals, audio and text.
Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia written collaboratively by contributors around the world, is a great example of the Web 2.0 concept. So are virtual communities like Second Life or Webkinz, where stuffed animals have both an online and offline existence via a unique identifier that is entered when logging on.
“At its core, Web 2.0 is interactivity,” says Doug Bates, vice president and CDO of Saskatoon research firm Itracks Inc., who gave a presentation on Web 2.0 at the QRCA Annual Conference in 2007. “It creates conversations, dialogue, content sharing and many other interactions that were not possible with Web 1.0.” More on: http://www.quirks.com/articles/2008/20080703.aspx?searchID=29501415